Flotsam
by did-you-reboot
Summary: When a research study goes awry, Hermione finds herself washed up on a tropical beach and rescued by the very last person she expected to save her. Post Deathly Hallows, but AU-ified a bit.
1. Chapter One

**Flotsam**

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"_Richard, what do you think you're—ARRGH!"_

"_Hermione! Oh gods, oh—"_

_A bright flash. Swirling, undulating lights. Nausea. Pain._

_Water. Water everywhere. Coughing, sputtering. Drowning?_

_Desperation._

_Relief._

Nausea, sand in every imaginable bodily orifice, and extreme fatigue do not make for a good afternoon. It was in this predicament that Hermione Granger now found herself: her body seemed intent on eviscerating all her internal organs, sand and salt were crusted all over her body and most notably in her eyes as water lapped at her legs, and she was much too fatigued to do anything about it. She hadn't any idea how she'd gotten to this insufferably bright and sunny shore in the first place, other than what the vague thoughts milling about in her mind told her. At least she was no longer _in _the water and drowning, in any case.

According to the vague abstractions floating about in her mind, she'd been minding her own business and working on her affairs in the Department of Mysteries before she suddenly found herself drowning in the middle of the ocean. Unfortunately, that was as far as her exhausted mind would take her, and any attempt to remember anything more was met by her mind threatening to render her unconscious, which really wouldn't do in this situation. But it seemed that her body simply hadn't the energy to sustain what little consciousness she had left, and when she felt a pair of hands pull her off the sand, her mind decided that everything was going to be fine and she promptly slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Hermione awoke slowly, her entire body feeling vaguely sore. Attempting to open her eyes resulted only in extreme discomfort, a groan of pain escaping from her throat as she clenched them shut again. After several more tries, her eyes finally adjusted and she found, to her immense surprise, that she was lying in a bright room with sunlight streaming through the wide-open windows. The scent of the ocean and the sounds of the water drifted in through the window, and for a moment Hermione thought she might have died and gone to some sort of afterlife filled with pleasant sounds and smells. And glancing to her side seemed to confirm this.

It was none other than Severus Snape.

She was greeted by the disconcerting sight of a man she knew to be dead sleeping in an armchair, his mouth hanging open in a manner that didn't seem appropriate for the image of him that Hermione harbored in her mind. She struggled for a moment to process the fact that he was also wearing a yellow T-shirt with a penguin on it, white board shorts, and flip flops, but it was _much_ too much for her somewhat somnolent brain to handle, so she did the most logical thing she could in order to relieve the stress the situation was putting on her.

She screamed.

It was not an oh-dear-you-startled-me scream, nor was it a what-might-this-odd-thing-be scream. The one that escaped her throat was of the dear-god-what-the-_bloody_-_fuck_-is-happening-to-me variety and was enough to curdle the blood of anyone whose blood was still, in fact, pumping. When Snape, like any normal living creature would, awoke with a start, reflexes vehemently told Hermione to back the hell away from this man and so she did. Her reflexes, however, didn't account for the fact that she was backing away off of a bed, and she ended up toppling onto wooden floor. She screamed again when she felt a sharp pain in her arm, her eyes widening in horror when she found a hypodermic needle dangling in front of her face, still attached to its plastic tubing.

"Miss Granger, calm down!"

In what must have been a conditioned response from her school days, she immediately froze at the sound of his voice, her eyes fixed on him. They stared at each other for an awkward minute or so, before Hermione finally ventured, "Am I dead?" Snape continued to stare at her, looking unexpectedly bewildered, which wasn't something she was quite accustomed to and feared that it confirmed the answer to her question, before he did the unimaginable.

He laughed.

The man threw his head back and laughed.

It wasn't an amused chuckle or a derisive villainous cackle, either; no, this was a full-on laugh, as though what she had asked him was the most hilarious thing in the world. The tendons in his neck were taut in his mirth, and he was even laughing so hard that when he stopped, he doubled over to catch his breath with a goofy grin on his face. Hermione felt a bizarre disconnect with her body begin to creep through her, as though her consciousness was separating from her physical body from the sheer impossibility of what was happening. The disconnect kept growing until her stomach decided that the best way to rectify the situation was to empty its contents, but thankfully she was able to clamp her jaw down and swallow whatever threatened to spill out of her mouth.

"No, you are not dead," he finally said, once his mirth had died down. He held out a hand to her. "Come on, Miss Granger. You need to lie down again."

She stared at his hand for a moment, her mind racing with the different ways a man could kill someone with his bare hands, when she caught sight of a familiar object from the corner of her eye. She stared at Snape a moment longer before reaching out to snatch what she assumed was a wand on a bedside table. To her immense relief, it was indeed a wand, and she promptly pointed it at Snape, crying, "_Petrificus totalus!_"

His eyes widened in shock and he toppled to the floor, his body rigid—or at least, that's what Hermione had expected to happen. What she did not expect was to find herself screaming as her entire body was engulfed in so much pain that she dropped the wand before curling into a ball on the floor. The only thought that was making it through her mind as she writhed in pain on the floor was that this laughing bastard had used the Cruciatus Curse on her. Was he hiding a wand in that penguin shirt of his?

Hermione wrenched her eyes open and found, to her dismay, that she was lying on a bed again, covered in sheets with a cool cloth on her forehead. It seemed to be night now, with moonlight bathing the room in a faint, almost ghostly glow. Her body pulsed with pain every time she tried to move it, and it was much worse than the first time she had awoken. She glanced to her side again and was so surprised at the sight of Snape watching her that her entire body twitched in shock, strangled whimpers of pain escaping her mouth as her body throbbed in agony.

"Don't move, please, Miss Granger."

"G-get away from me—!"

"I assure you that I am not here to hurt you, Miss Granger. Don't move or you're going to rip the IV out of your arm again."

Hermione immediately froze and, though it was agonizing to do so, pulled her left arm out from underneath the sheets. "_What are you doing to me?"_ she shrieked in horror at the sight of the intravenous drip lodged in her forearm. Her attempt to rip the medical tape off the drip was stalled when he pulled her free hand away and pinned her left arm down with his other hand.

"It's only morphine," he said calmly, his face incomprehensible in the darkness of the room. The shock on her face quickly turned to confusion.

"Why on earth did you put me on morphine?"

"I'll explain if you promise not to rip the IV out or try to hex me with the wand on the bedside table," he said, his fingers tightening around her arm and wrist as though worried that she might make a sudden move for the wand—which, admittedly, was exactly what she was thinking. She wordlessly nodded, and, satisfied, Snape immediately released her arms. When it was clear that she was not going to lunge of the wand and try to immobilize him like any sane person would, he relaxed and turned to flip a light switch on the wall before returning to his seat in the armchair. She groaned as her eyes throbbed from the sudden light, sending her best irate glare at him in the hopes that perhaps this bizarre, penguin-shirted version of Snape would be intimidated by it.

Clearly, from the smile on his face, this Snape was not intimidated in the least. In fact, he was cheeky enough to look _amused_.

"Miss Granger, when I found you washed up on the beach," he began, and the brief glare that he returned at her was enough for her to stop trying to glare back, "you were nearly dead, mostly delirious, and your body was rejecting anything magical I tried to do."

"What do you mean by 'rejecting'?" Hermione asked dubiously.

"Just trying to heal some of your bruises seemed to cause you significant pain. Even just trying to use magic to light the room had you screaming and thrashing. You…don't recall any of that?" He looked to her expectantly, to which she replied with a bewildered look.

"N-no, nothing."

"I see." He fell silent for a moment, as though gauging her emotional state, before continuing. "You did seem to be in considerable pain, and since giving you a potion would have probably killed you, it seemed pertinent to put you on morphine."

"Where did you learn…how to do this?" said Hermione, holding up her arm.

"I actually didn't do that. I have an acquaintance who happens to be a nurse," Snape replied, his lips spreading into a thin smirk. "I…_persuaded_ her that it was the best option. Before you ask, she did determine that your body would be able to handle it." He let out a low chuckle, presumably at the horrified face she was making, and had the nerve to expand that smirk into a mischievous smile. He was doing all this specifically to tie her mind into knots—she was sure of it. Regardless, she had other more pressing questions to ask.

"Aren't you—I thought you were—" She wasn't quite able to complete her thought, as she was still incredibly confused as to what she was doing with a man that had died in front her eyes, and more importantly, what the bloody hell he was doing wearing a yellow penguin shirt.

"That I was dead?" he added helpfully. Hermione stared at him, her mouth open in alarm at how…_civil_ his voice sounded.

"Well…yes," she said.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Miss Granger. Did you ever see my body afterwards?" said Snape lightly. Hermione was surprised that his voice held neither malice nor contempt; in fact, it was almost like a conversation between old friends—and this greatly disturbed her.

"No, now that you mention it," she murmured. She'd gone to a funeral held in Snape's name, but now that she looked back on it, the casket was never opened. Nobody had thought anything of it at the time—Harry had even rationalized it by concluding that Snape wouldn't want anyone gawking at his body anyway, which everyone had happily accepted since it really did make a lot of sense.

"Professor McGonagall found me," Snape continued. "She helped me, though reluctantly, to slip away without anyone noticing. It's worked rather well, I must say—if the world thinks I'm dead, nobody bothers me."

"But—how? Harry and I saw you…Nagini got you in the neck, and there was so much blood, and you weren't moving—"

"Again, I thought you were smarter than that," he interrupted, leaning against the arm of his armchair, looking disappointed and almost…_bored_. "Do you really think I would have gone to the Dark Lord without some sort of contingency plan? I'll admit that I truly wasn't expecting it to save me, but I suppose I got lucky." When Hermione remained silent and rather bewildered, he sighed. "I drank a potion shortly before you saw me meet with the Dark Lord. It was a combination of blood-replenishing and blood-coagulation potions…not that it would have helped in the least if he decided to kill me with the Killing Curse."

Hermione felt her curiosity piqued by that little tidbit. "But that potion would have killed you if you were wrong. Without a wound to clot, the potion would have made your blood clot in places it shouldn't," she said, frowning and then giving a shudder when Snape smiled at her.

"Indeed it would have. I, however, had an antidote in the off chance that he decided to not kill me after all," he continued. "But I wasn't quite that lucky. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was incredibly fortunate to have survived the bite that Nagini gave me."

There was an awkward silence as Snape stopped speaking to wait for a response from her. She didn't know what to say—she felt like crying, because she was both happy that he was alive and sad at the ordeal he had to endure, but she inexplicably wanted to yell at him for disappearing from the Wizarding world without letting everyone apologize for how they've been treating him. Then again, considering Snape's record, they wouldn't have simply accepted him back with open arms, even with Harry crusading to clear his name. It was no surprise, then, that Snape wished for some peace and quiet. It certainly seemed peaceful enough there, wherever "there" was.

"Here, have some water," Snape said finally, handing her a cold water bottle. As she twisted the cap off—with some difficulty, as it seemed her muscles weren't fully obeying her mind quite yet, he leaned back in his chair with his eyes fixed on her and asked, "Do you know where you are?"

"Haven't the slightest," she said, before lifting the bottle to her lips to take another gulp of water.

"Hawaii."

_Pffftttbbbllll._

"Wh-what do you mean, '_Hawaii?_'"

Silence.

"Presumably, you mean 'what on Earth are you doing in Hawaii?' and not 'where on Earth is Hawaii?'" said Snape, arching an eyebrow. It took Hermione a few moments of sputtering to find her words—which had popped off for a few moments to recover from the shock of being in Hawaii.

"O-of course I know where Hawaii is!" she snapped irritably as she felt her face beginning to flush in embarrassment. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

"I should think that would be obvious to anybody," Snape drawled, his air of boredom growing more pronounced. "The climate is very agreeable, and nobody bothers me on this island. Also, it is mercifully far from Britain." Hermione nearly flung the water bottle at him in exasperation.

"No, I mean, _why_? Why would _you_ pick Hawaii of all places?" she sputtered, just barely able to coax the jumble of thoughts in her mind into a coherent question. A thin smile spread across Snape's lips as the look of boredom slowly—and in a way that Hermione entirely disapproved of—morphed into that of amusement.

"Well, I tried living in Japan for a year, but found that I stood out like a sore thumb there. Not to mention," he added nonchalantly, "I was developing an unhealthy penchant for visiting maid cafés."

Hermione's mind did an aborted backflip.

"You…_what?_"

Snape let out a laugh that suggested he was enjoying this entirely _too much_, and once more Hermione felt that unpleasant feeling of disconnect between her mind and her body beginning to spread through her. "I don't like to drink myself into unconsciousness because I tend to wake up with vomit everywhere, though if it helps your state of mind, I did do that for a good two weeks or so," he said, chuckling. "But I assume your distress is from the maid café bit."

"_Just a little bit_," said Hermione, her voice refusing to come out in anything but exasperated sarcasm. She'd read about maid cafés on the internet whenever she had access to it, and if they were anything _at all_ like what she read, then she had half a mind to run outside and fling herself into the ocean.

"I hadn't even meant to go to it the first time," Snape mused as Hermione's mind floundered about in her skull. "It was next to an apothecary in Ueno, and I'd walked into it thinking it was an extension of the apothecary. Both had décor questionable to our Western sensibilities, I suppose, and I hadn't thought anything of it because of run-ins with similarly decorated shops. Imagine my surprise when a girl half my height in an owl dress says '_Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!'_ to me." He paused a moment to enjoy the ever-increasing horror that was spreading on Hermione's face.

"I think I was so horrified that I didn't realize she'd led me to a table and sat me down, and since my Japanese skills at the time were on par with Longbottom's potion skills, I wasn't quite sure what was going on," he continued. "At the time, my mind was still teeming with dark, alcoholic thoughts, so I'm still mystified as to why my face hadn't scared her off."

Hermione stared at him, slack-jawed, as he simply stopped talking. "Well?" she snapped after a few tense moments passed.

"Well what?"

"You can't just leave it at that! Why did you keep going back?"

The look of disappointment crept back onto his face. "I think I've talked enough, Miss Granger. How about we make this like old times? Five points from Gryffindor if you can tell me why I kept going back," he said, folding his arms over his chest.

She was just about to answer with her best theory when she paused. "Wait. Five points _from_ Gryffindor?" Hermione said slowly, frowning at him.

"Like I said, just like old times."

Up until this point, Hermione's distress and horror over this man who was allegedly Snape had completely dominated her amusement at the whole situation—no question about it, no contest, a complete massacre. But after taking a few moments to process what he said, she couldn't contain it any longer and burst into laughter, loud, raucous, and incredibly painful laughter. _Can it be?_ she thought, clutching at her stomach as she both quaked with laughter and clenched her eyes shut against the pain._ Is this really Snape? Does he have—a sense of humor?_

Snape patiently waited for her to stop laughing and catch her breath, the smile on his face suggesting that he enjoyed nothing more than to see her in pain from her own mirth. "You—you bastard," she wheezed as a few straggling laughs escaped her gut. "Wh-what have you done—with Severus Snape? Who—who are you really?"

"The old Severus Snape died in Japan, Miss Granger," he said quietly, looking uncomfortable for the first time since she awoke.

"Wh-what did you say?"

"Look, Miss Granger," he said, directing his gaze out the window, "I loathed myself during the Dark Lord's reign. Both times, in fact. I'm sure Mr. Potter would have divulged to you the details of the memories I gave him, so you shouldn't be surprised in the least. I loathed the old me and felt it was finally time to let go."

She stared at him in silence, unable to find her voice. Was it possible for people to change so drastically? Granted, it had been nearly ten years since the fall of Tom Riddle, but she'd never even dreamed that a person like Snape—for whom loathing and suffering had penetrated to his very core—could have changed in such a way. In fact, she'd just been discussing him with Harry and Ron over tea the other day; they'd been reminiscing about the friends they'd lost and had all agreed that the nefarious Severus Snape would have probably stayed bitter and full of regret for the rest of his life. And yet here he was in Hawaii, healthier than ever with a brand-spanking-new sense of humor—not to mention a new wardrobe that apparently included penguin shirts.

"You went to those cafés…to help forget, didn't you?" Hermione said quietly. He turned to look back at her with a small, almost regretful smile.

"That's the Granger I was expecting. Indeed, the waitresses play a role in those places. It's not real—it's all just a show, no matter how earnestly they follow their _ganbatte_ mantra," said Snape, his eyes seeming to look right through her. "It was easy to become someone else once I had realized what was going on. And since there was no alcohol, there were, happily, no vomit or hangovers involved."

There was a rather pregnant silence—indeed, Hermione's mind was trying to give birth to a coherent sentence, but it just wasn't ready yet. Her face must have betrayed her mind's pregnancy, because Snape stood up from his chair and flipped the light switch, effectively indicating that their conversation was over and plunging the room into darkness.

"Go to sleep, Miss Granger. You need to rest after what you went through. And I've got to get up early—I was planning on going surfing tomorrow."

_That bastard is just toying with me now._

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_A/N: So this was just something stupid I threw together a while back, so I thought I'd finish the chapter off. Hahaha. More will come eventually.  
_


	2. Chapter Two

**Flotsam**

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**Chapter Two**

_Am I dead?_

_That or I've gone mad. Completely mental. Absolutely insane._

_Perhaps the stress has gotten to me. I've been working long hours at the Department of Mysteries lately. Maybe I'm hallucinating. Perhaps Cromwell's experiment a few weeks ago had side effects after all._

_I hope I snap out of this soon. I don't think my mind can take it._

Today's shirt was a deep red and had a large, artsy print of an octopus on the back. Hermione thought that maybe the universe was stabilizing when Severus Snape entered the room in the morning with scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice, but the universe promptly began collapsing again as soon as she caught a glimpse of the octopus print on the back of his shirt.

"Miss Granger," said Snape finally, after they spent a few minutes staring at each other in silence—him in mild amusement and her in abject confusion, "I assure you, you are neither dead nor insane. Stop thinking like that or you might become so."

Hermione felt her face flush slightly as she hurriedly looked down at the plate he'd handed her minutes ago. Because of the mental rollercoaster her mind had been subjected to the previous night, she'd completely forgotten that Snape was a Legilimens and would probably notice if she was agonizing about trifling matters like insanity or madness. She tried to clear her mind of all things relating to said worries about madness, but her mind wasn't in the best shape to perform Occlumency and it really was quite hard to eat _and_ do that at the same time.

"Professor McGonagall will be arriving here later with Madam Pomfrey to check on you," said Snape, and immediately Hermione's head snapped up.

"Professor McGonagall? But how—" she started, but was quickly silenced when Snape gave her a pointed look that reminded her uncomfortably of her school days.

"I contacted her. From what I was able to gather, it seems the Department of Mysteries got into a bit of a panic after you disappeared. Minerva is bringing Madam Pomfrey along to avoid disclosing this location to a Ministry healer," he continued as he reached over to take her empty plate away. "Potter and the Weasleys, from what I heard, seem to be worrying themselves to death as well. I suggested that Professor McGonagall let them know that you are in acceptable hands."

She snorted into her glass of juice. "'Acceptable' hands?" she said incredulously as that bizarre, cheeky smile appeared on Snape's face again. "Why did you contact Professor McGonagall? I assumed you banished yourself to Hawaii to avoid everyone back home."

Snape set the plate on the floor and leaned back into his armchair—Hermione had a sneaking suspicion that Story Time was probably coming. "I've actually been in contact with her this whole time," he said simply. "She comes over for tea or coconut juice every few months or so."

Hermione, at this point, was far too tired of being blindsided by everything this man said that she simply rolled with this one. "Ah, tea and coconuts. Lovely," she said dryly, which elicited a laugh from Snape. "I assume she never mentioned it to us because you didn't want her to?"

"Astute as ever, Miss Granger."

"Did you know that Harry cleared your name? You could have come back if you wanted," said Hermione, hoping that maybe something _she_ said would perhaps throw him for a loop.

"I'd heard that, yes."

No such luck.

"I led a shipwreck of a life back in Britain," Snape continued with a noncommittal shrug, and Hermione just barely managed to suppress the immediate thought of _dear Merlin, did he just shrug_, "and if life goes on without me there, then all the better for both parties."

Another silence. Had Snape been this predisposed to contemplative and conversation-smothering comments before?

"If I recall correctly, you used to talk a great deal more than this, Miss Granger," he said in slight disappointment, that _bored_ expression emerging on his face again. "I no longer have the power to take House points in order to hold your tongue. If you have something to say, just say it."

At that, Hermione felt slight irritation wash over her. She'd somehow been transported several thousand miles from her workplace _into_ the Pacific Ocean _in spite of_ the powerful enchantments at the Department of Mysteries that were meant to prevent that sort of thing, and had apparently been in so much pain that she was put on morphine. Not to mention the _slightly_ troubling fact that magic had put her in the pain that prompted the morphine in the first place. Clearly, these were normal conditions under which she should be happily chattering away to a man that, until recently, was dead to her.

She thought for a moment that this might be an impostor—perhaps someone impersonating him with Polyjuice Potion. _Why_ anyone would impersonate a dead man and proceed to live on a remote island is another matter entirely, but it was a theory that helped keep her mind from falling apart at the seams. Of course, if Professor McGonagall did indeed show up later, the theory would fall to pieces unless McGonagall was also an impostor, or at least a conspirator in the quest to drive Hermione Granger mad.

Without a word, she reached for the wand on the bedside table and snatched it before Snape could stop her. "Miss Granger, you—" he started, but she pointed the wand at him.

"How can I be sure you're not just lying to me and pretending to be Professor Snape?" she demanded, tightening her grip on the wand.

"Miss Granger, use your head. Magic is not the best thing for you right now," said Snape, holding up his hands in what she presumed was an attempt to get her to calm down. "I am not an impostor."

As though giving his word would solve the issue then and there.

"Miss Granger," he said, looking slightly exasperated. "Miss Granger. I went to the Shrieking Shack while you were down there with Sirius Black with the intent to turn him in to the Dementors. You and Potter knocked me out with a Disarming spell. Perhaps Weasley too—I remember him being there."

Hermione stared at him, shocked into silence. There was no way any imposter would know that—half the witnesses to that little event were dead and all would have been loath to describe to just anybody the particulars of what happened there. She slowly lowered the wand into her lap as the full truth of her situation began to finally sink in: she was in Hawaii, and she was in Hawaii with the real, genuine, born-again Severus Snape. She wasn't going to cry or anything of the sort, but her mind was taking a short break to recover from the reality of it all, rendering her motionless and gaping.

"I hope you don't have some sort of post-traumatic stress issue going on, Miss Granger."

"Wh-what?"

So her plan to simply roll with whatever witticism passed his lips was failing.

"Of course I don't have post-traumatic stress issues," said Hermione huffily. She really was out of her element here and it would probably be a good idea to pull herself together. Although the intravenous drip had been removed some time before she awoke this morning, it was likely the morphine treatment was still affecting her cognitive abilities. Of course, it didn't make her any less embarrassed to be so slow on the uptake. As a teenager, she'd kept Harry and Ron alive using her quick thinking, for goodness sake, so it hurt her pride a teeny bit that she was blithering like an idiot.

"I see. In any case, give me back the wand," Snape said, extending his hand toward her.

"Wait, wait. I'm going to try a spell," she said hastily, holding the wand out of his reach. When he opened his mouth to protest, she quickly interrupted. "Just a simple charm. No transfiguration or anything." He scrutinized her for a moment, obviously debating whether to allow her to do so, before he lowered his hand and nodded.

"A simple one, then. Try _lumos_."

_Lumos_ would be no problem at all, right?

"Here goes, then. _Lumos_."

A horrific and terrifying pain stabbed Hermione right in her heart and surged outward toward the rest of her body, causing her to drop the wand and cry out, clutching at her chest. It wasn't like anything she'd ever felt before—the pain was orders of magnitude less intense than the torture she went through at Bellatrix Lestrange's hands, but yet she felt as though Death was bearing down on her, ready to violently tear her soul from her body.

"Miss Granger? _Miss Granger!_"

_It hurts…It hurts so much…_

"Miss Granger! Wake up! Can you hear me?"

Blinking heavily, Hermione opened her eyes and found Snape shaking her shoulders as though she were at death's door—which was likely where she had been spending the last few minutes (or hours, perhaps? How long had it been?).

"Miss Granger, how are you feeling?"

"What…what happened?" she murmured, absently putting her hand over her heart as the last vestiges of pain faded away.

"Your body rejected the magic," said Snape quietly as she took a few deep breaths to get her poor heart to stop pounding in her chest. "You shouldn't try anything more until Madam Pomfrey has examined you. Perhaps you should lie here for a while."

"Actually—I think some fresh air would help. Would that be all right, Professor?" Hermione asked hesitantly, slowly sitting up and realizing that she'd broken out into a cold sweat as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"I suppose that would be fine," he said, though from the sound of his voice, it seemed he didn't quite believe it.

Hermione threw the sheets off and couldn't repress a small squeak of dismay when she found that the legs she was swinging off the bed were actually bare and that she'd only been wearing a long t-shirt the whole time. "D-did you—?" she started, feeling a blush beginning to creep up her face.

"No. The nurse changed your clothes," said Snape, not bothered in the least by her little show of embarrassment—he even had the gall to smirk at her. "All I did was provide a shirt."

Coughing once in an attempt to clear the blush from her face, Hermione slowly got to her feet and fully expected that she'd probably be a bit wobbly after lying in bed for so long. Unfortunately, she had severely overestimated herself and before she realized what was happening, her legs had forsaken her and she found herself collapsing onto the floor. She would have fallen flat on her face if Snape hadn't caught her arm and pulled her upright.

"Here, lean on me," he said, hooking his arm under her armpit as he slowly led her from the room. Hermione could feel herself turning red in embarrassment; she could barely move her legs, and was more _dragged_ out of the room than led. And as she was dragged out of the room, she found herself rather surprised at Snape's physique. To be honest with herself, she hadn't expected Snape's body to be so lean underneath the t-shirt—it was like pressing against a pillar. Not that she used to think that he was fat or anything, but all the layers of black, dramatic clothing he used to wear gave him a rather squishy image in her mind. Or perhaps he _had _beena tad squishier in the past and instead lost the weight after the war.

Hermione was pleasantly surprised at the sight of Snape's living room. The house itself seemed quite small and couldn't have had more than one or two bedrooms, but even so the small living room seemed quite cozy, with a wicker couch, armchair, and coffee table taking up the bulk of the space. Ill-fitting threadbare cushions made with some kitschy tropical print were jammed onto the couch and chair, and matching drapes were hanging from the wall, pushed aside to allow the ocean breeze to drift in through the window. All in all, it seemed like a cute little place—definitely different from the dungeons that she was so used to seeing him prowl through.

A small gasp escaped her mouth when she finally hobbled onto the porch outside. Snape's little place was situated right along the shore—if her legs had been in working order, it would have been only a dozen or so strides before reaching the sandy beach. In fact, it looked just like the kind of place that would be featured in some tropical travel guide. A few palm trees were clustered in front of the house, casting a pleasant shadow over the porch, and like it was out of some movie cliché, a hammock was strung between two of the trees' trunks.

"That's what Minerva said the first time she saw it," said Snape, laughing dryly as he helped her take a seat in a weather-worn wicker chair.

"It's…it's so warm, even out here," Hermione said, smiling as Snape pulled up a chair beside her. "I can see why you prefer this weather, Professor."

"Let's make some guidelines here, Miss Granger," said Snape, leaning back into his chair. "I am no longer a Hogwarts professor and I prefer not to be reminded of that part of my life, so why don't you refer to me by name?"

Hermione couldn't help but stare at him blankly for a moment. "So…" she said slowly, nervously drumming her fingers against her thighs. It seemed a little…_weird_…to call him anything but "Professor," and it felt almost blasphemous to even think about saying it.

"I have a name, Miss Granger. Say it with me: Severus Snape."

"Er…"

"Saying my name does not unleash a powerful creature, nor does it bring a plague upon your first-born child. I'm afraid my magical power is insufficient for such feats."

She snorted and couldn't help but smile at the mental image of a rampaging demon being summoned by uttering Snape's name. "How about this, then?" she said, stifling her laughter. "I'll stop calling you 'Professor' if you stop calling me 'Miss Granger.'" Snape folded his arms over his chest and frowned, looking rather deep in thought. Perhaps it was as hard for him as it was for her.

"I suppose that sounds fair, Hermione," he finally said.

Damn, that sounded weird.

"Well, that's good, S—Severus."

Why did it feel like she was dragging a worm out of her throat?

"No monsters yet. A good sign," said Snape, lazily casting his gaze across the ocean's horizon. Hermione snorted again; she wasn't sure that she'd ever get used to Snape's deadpan humor.

They sat on the porch in silence, the only sounds coming from the waves crashing on the beach and the rustle of the trees in the breeze. It was _incredibly_ relaxing, and for at least a brief moment, the thoughts racing around in her mind slowed down and gave her brain a much-needed rest. It was clear now why Snape had hidden himself away in such a place; it was easy to lose oneself in the sounds of the ocean with no noise from civilization polluting it. If she didn't miss her friends and family so much, she might never leave this place.

The sounds of approaching footsteps wrenched Hermione out of her peaceful reverie, and when she peered about in the direction of the noise, found that Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were making their way toward the porch from around the side of the house. Seeing Snape's new wardrobe was mind-twisting enough, but seeing McGonagall and Pomfrey in loose, bright sundresses was almost as surreal.

"Honestly, Severus, what are you doing letting Hermione sit out here just wearing that shirt?" said McGonagall irritably and without further preamble. Seems that they were better friends than Hermione expected if she didn't even bother greeting him.

"She'll be fine. It's not cold out here at all," Snape retorted coolly, getting to his feet. Hermione would have done the same, but considering her earlier failure at autonomous movement, she decided to stay in her seat.

"Severus," said Madam Pomfrey, nodding to him with her lips pursed. Judging by her face and how her body seemed to tense up, it was obvious that she hadn't quite forgiven him in the past ten years. However, Snape didn't seem to be bothered by it at all and simply returned the nod, his expression unreadable.

McGonagall set her tartan carpetbag down on the porch and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "Hermione, how on Earth did you end up here?" she asked worriedly.

Million-galleon question right there.

"I really have no idea, Professor. One minute I was working, and the next I was drowning in the ocean," said Hermione. "I'm not sure how the Department's enchantments failed to keep me inside."

"Well, how are you feeling now? The report Severus gave me was…_troubling._"

"I'm feeling much better now, thank you, but my legs aren't quite cooperating yet."

"Poppy, do you think you could examine her now?" asked McGonagall, turning to look at Pomfrey over her shoulder.

With a curt nod, Pomfrey immediately set about her work. When she pulled out her wand, Hermione expected Snape to protest but found that he simply watched with mild interest. Each time Pomfrey prodded her with the tip of the wand, she felt an unpleasant twinge of pain radiate from the point of contact, and by the time Pomfrey was finished physically examining her, she was quite apprehensive of the diagnostic charms that were sure to come. If it was anything like trying to use a simple charm like _lumos_, she was afraid of what a stronger spell might do to her.

"Physically, you seem fine apart from some limb fatigue, Granger," said Poppy finally, straightening up. "What was this about morphine that Minerva was telling me about? It's some sort of Muggle pain-relief potion?"

"Something like that, yes," said Snape, nodding. "I had a Muggle nurse from town give it to her intravenously."

Pomfrey made a tutting sound, quite obviously disapproving of such a barbaric approach to healing. "Why not an actual pain-relief potion?" she asked. "Would have been much more effective than pumping her full of drugs." For the first time since Hermione had been deposited into the ocean, she saw a fleeting flash of irritation appear on Snape's face before it faded back into a thin smile.

"I'm sure Minerva has informed you of Hermione's situation, Poppy," Snape said patiently as a shudder passed through Hermione at the sound of her name. "She was in severe pain any time I tried to use magic around her, so I did not want to risk any similar effects a potion might have and dropped the security enchantments I had around my home just to be safe. She also tried to use _lumos_ earlier this morning with disastrous results."

Hermione wasn't sure she liked the way he'd phrased that, but she supposed that passing out and screaming in pain qualified as "disastrous."

"Granger, hold this," said Pomfrey after rummaging through her bag and pulling out a clear glass sphere the size of a billiard ball.

When Hermione took the ball, Pomfrey pressed the tip of her wand against it and slowly, the ball started glowing a faint blue. At first, it felt quite warm and pleasant in her hand, but as the ball began to glow a little brighter, the warmth became a throbbing pain that radiated up her arm and into her chest, giving her that same terrifying _holy-fuck-I'm-going-to-die_ feeling from earlier. She groaned and unconsciously put a hand to her chest, and immediately Pomfrey removed her wand and eased her back into the chair.

"It's worse than I expected," Pomfrey said, shaking her head and taking the ball from her.

Definitely the words that Hermione did _not_ want to hear.

"The trauma from the accident at the Department of Mysteries has affected your magic. I've heard of cases of this happening when a person is forced through powerful defensive enchantments," she continued. "Unfortunately, there is no way to magically treat this. You'll just have to wait for yourself to heal, Granger. I'm sorry."

"B-but I need to get back to work! Isn't there anything I can do?" Hermione sputtered, bolting upright and giving Pomfrey the most desperate face she could. Pomfrey gave her an almost pitying look—_definitely_ not the kind of expression that Hermione was hoping she'd make.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing to do but wait. But you know," Pomfrey added brightly, "it's just as well that you ended up in such a remote location. It'll make things much easier on you, since travel will be out of the question."

"Traveling will be fine! I can take a plane back home. It's not a problem!" The desperation in Hermione's voice was quite obvious now.

Pomfrey shook her head and gave her another hope-dashing, pitying look—it was all Hermione could do to brace herself for the very worst scenario. "The residual magic back in Britain will be too much for you, and I'm sure if you tried to go back to the Ministry, you'd be dead before you even got to the entrance. That's why it's quite fortunate that you ended up here: the residual magic is quite low and will be manageable for you if you stay."

"How long until I can go home?" asked Hermione, eyes gleaming and hands clasped tightly together.

_Please say something good. Something spectacular like "two days" or "tomorrow."_

"In this kind of environment, I would give you…two months at best."

Two months.

Two months.

Two months_ at best_.

Her mind seemed to implode inside her skull. She had just been minding her own business at work like a diligent Unspeakable, and this is the kind of thing that the heavens thrust upon her? It was at the worst possible time—not that these sorts of things ever happened at good times—since she had been making incredible headway in her research project at the Department of Mysteries.

"Why not think of this as a holiday?"

Everyone turned to look at Snape in one orchestrated motion. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and gave a small laugh. "If there's no way that you're going to be able to go home, just think of it as a holiday. If you're anything how I assume you to be, you probably haven't had a proper one just yet," he said lightly.

Well, that's a thought. Perfectly spot-on as well.

"Severus has a point, Hermione," McGonagall said, nodding. "Trying to return home would be foolish, so why not enjoy yourself here?"

It all sounded well and good, but considering her position as an Unspeakable of the Department of Mysteries, it was likely they wouldn't accept an excuse like, "Sorry, research went wrong and I'm stuck in Hawaii. See you in two months!" She was absolutely certain that the Department was assembling some sort of team to investigate what had happened to her—and if she contacted them directly to let them know her condition, they'd Apparate to the island before she would have time to stuff a sandwich in her mouth. And if she did stay here on the island and Department employees came to examine her, wouldn't that be risking revealing Snape to them? His security wards were down because of her, and if he used the whole shebang of major wards, his home probably wasn't Unplottable anymore.

"The Ministry…as soon as they get wind that I'm here, they'll send someone over to check on me," Hermione said slowly, frowning. "I'll need to go to a different island so that they don't find Prof—Severus here. They'll want to question the person who found me. I—" She paused a moment, before smiling up at Snape. "—I couldn't do that to you."

"I don't believe it will be a problem," Snape said. "I don't mind if you stay here. I have a wizard acquaintance in Honolulu that could stand in for me should the Ministry come calling."

"No, I couldn't impose on you any longer. I can go—" Hermione started, but was quickly interrupted by him.

"You can't walk, in case you've forgotten. How do you expect to go anywhere alone?"

A very good question.

"I'll leave as soon as I can, then. Really, I don't want—"

"It's probably better that Severus be around to make sure you're all right while you recover," McGonagall said quietly. "Don't be foolish, dear girl." At that, Hermione sighed in resignation; she was grasping at straws now, and they had backed her into a corner.

"I suppose so…I'll have to have Ginny or Harry send me some clothes, then…"

"That's that, then," said McGonagall, giving Hermione a nod of approval. "I will arrange for Miss Weasley or Mister Potter to give me your things, and I shall send them with an owl. You just worry about recovering."

That's that, indeed. So for two months she would be stranded—or rather, taking a _holiday_—on a small Hawaiian island thousands of miles from home, unable to use magic to even light her wand. Oh, and her legs weren't working properly. Fantastic. Brilliant.

But, she supposed, it would be a good opportunity to find out what other curious things Severus Snape has been up to during the years of his non-death.

"Come on, Severus," said McGonagall, drawing herself up smartly as she picked up her bag. "You promised coconut juice."

"Of course, Minerva. Wait here while I pick some."

Hermione hoped that she would get used to this soon.

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, guys! I don't usually get many, so they're very encouraging. Anywho, I hope this chapter was okay...Definitely not as exciting as the previous one. Also, I don't like to reveal pairings or ships or whatever, so y'all can make your own conjectures. Haha. Thanks again, readers!_


	3. Chapter Three

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Three**

_One, two, three._

_One, two, three._

_One, two—hnngh._

_Dammit._

The lack of magic was tolerable, but the lack of mobility? It was killing Hermione to have to sit around all day because her legs wouldn't move properly. Over the past week or so that she'd been staying at Severus Snape's beachside abode, she had taken to doing small exercises to try and get some control over her legs back. But try as she might, she could barely walk without the aid of crutches. With a frustrated grumble, she flopped backwards into the sand, staring up at the deep blue sky and slowly exhaling. _Give it time_, she told herself while simultaneously gritting her teeth. _It's only been a week, and Madam Pomfrey said they'd be fine long before my magic comes back. Only a week. _

She absently dug her fingers into the sand and closed her eyes as a gentle breeze blew over her, thinking back at the events that landed her in Hawaii in the first place and attempting to figure out what exactly had gone wrong. Her research was one of several studies going on regarding the space that portkeys and Apparition employ when transporting people from one point to another. She had been assigned to a team developing a potion that could delay a portkey user's exit from the transportation space—other teams were developing charms or magical artifacts to achieve the same thing. If she recalled correctly, before the accident and her subsequent arrival at the Pacific Ocean, she had been working with some highly volatile ingredients around a test portkey. Her colleague, Richard, had wandered into the room while she was working—against potion laboratory protocol, she might add—and accidentally bumped her while she was handling…_something_.

That was where her memory fell apart. Hermione couldn't remember what it was she'd been preparing to add to her potion, but whatever it was had touched something that it shouldn't have and likely caused the chain reaction that resulted in the test portkey sending her to Hawaii. If she could _just_ remember what it was she had been handling, she might be able to explain what happened. Not that it would do any good, of course; her woes were from somehow getting forced through security wards, not from any ill effects of the potion ingredients.

Hopefully, Richard would be able to shed some light on what had happened. After some planning with Snape and McGonagall, they'd agreed that she would wait a week before contacting the Ministry so that Snape could arrange for his wizard friend in Honolulu to come and stand in for him. Just last night, in fact, she had sent a snowy egret to the Ministry with a letter—Snape had come back from the post office on Oahu with the long-necked white bird, muttering something about surprising the dunderheads at the Ministry—and early the next morning, a large eagle owl arrived bearing a letter from the Department of Mysteries. And, just like she thought, the Department had insisted on sending Richard over tomorrow to verify her story.

However, other than the frustrating lack of control she had over her legs, things had been nice on the island. For the most part, Snape left her to her own devices and didn't try to ask about her duties at work. He seemed to spend half the day holed up in the other room of his house, apparently working on potions, and spent the other half strolling down the beach and out of sight for hours at a time. Hermione expected he was making preparations for the Ministry representative's arrival, but his walk looked so leisurely that it was as though he wasn't leaving to do any work at all.

The other day, however, he had gone swimming right off the shore with his wand strapped to his leg and had dived for so long that Hermione wondered if he had been attacked by saltwater grindylows or something. When he finally resurfaced, Bubble-head Charm still in effect and humorously magnifying his head, she thought for a quick second that he was carrying a grindylow carcass and wondered what the hell he was going to do with it, before she realized it was actually a huge wad of glimmering blue seaweed. Not that she knew what the hell he was going to do with that either, but from the faint pain she felt as he walked by with it dragging in the sand behind him, it was probably some sort of magical plant used in potions…Unless, of course, he'd taken up seaweed-harvesting in his spare time as well.

"Napping again, are we?"

Hermione cracked an eye open and found Snape standing beside her, a pair of fresh coconuts in hand. "No, just thinking," she said, sitting up as he sat down and handed her a coconut with a hole cut out of it.

"How are the legs today? Is the pain gone?" he asked, passing her a straw before placing one in his own coconut.

"The pain is gone. It's still difficult to move them, though," said Hermione before taking a sip of coconut juice. She'd started growing fond of it—it was delicious and the novelty of drinking it straight from the coconut hadn't worn off yet.

"That's good." They sat in silence, each sipping at their juice and staring out into the ocean, before Snape turned to her again. "Richard's portkey is scheduled to arrive at nine tomorrow, correct?"

"Right. He'll have a Ministry healer with him as well."

"Good. Danny will be arriving at seven, then."

Danny Takahashi was the wizard from Honolulu that Snape knew. He came to visit a few days ago so that they could explain the situation, and he seemed like a nice enough man. It turned out that he ran a small business in Honolulu that supplied magical items to the more remote Hawaiian islands, and Snape was one of his potion suppliers. There was something a little off about him, though—he was difficult to read due to his constant smiles and penchant for sarcasm. As such, Hermione couldn't tell if he was messing with her when he told stories about alleged escapades he and Snape had trying to deliver potions to the tops of volcanoes or the like. Snape only laughed quietly along and didn't say anything either way when she asked about it.

"Do you really surf, Severus?" Hermione asked suddenly, inwardly shuddering—she was still getting that fresh sacrilegious-throatworm-dragged-out-of-mouth feeling whenever she said his name. He gave her a sidelong glance and a thin smile.

"Why do you ask?" he said, arching an eyebrow.

"It's just that I haven't yet seen a surfboard anywhere around here, so I was wondering if you were just leading me on about that," she said, giving him an expectant look.

"You doubt me, Hermione? I'm offended," Snape said, though his face looked neither offended nor hurt.

What a non-answer.

"When I surf, it is quite totally awesome, dude," he said solemnly as she took another sip from her coconut.

_Hrrrrrkngghhhkkkfff._

The coconut juice went straight down her windpipe, throwing her into a fit of hacking coughs. "You—say—these things—right when I—drink something!" she managed to choke in between laughs. He gave a small laugh and turned back toward the ocean.

"I don't know what you mean," he said lightly, the amusement clear in his voice.

The spent the next few minutes in silence—well, relative silence, as Hermione was still hacking up the last remnants of juice from her lungs. But once she finished, she flopped onto her back in the sand and closed her eyes again, letting herself get lost in the sounds of the water. They did a lot of this over the past week when he wasn't brewing or walking: just sitting and listening to the ocean. She could tell he was always thinking hard about something—brooding, perhaps, over his past transgressions—but he didn't give off the dark, almost anguished vibe that he used to in the past.

"I'm glad that you're happier now."

She wasn't sure why she'd chosen that moment to say it and it seemed that Snape was equally as surprised, but it had been weighing in her mind ever since she found herself there and found him to be the well-adjusted person he seemed to be.

"I—well, thank you," Snape replied, slightly taken aback.

Finally, a victory.

Hermione: 1; Snape: a lot.

Well, it was a start.

She wanted to continue, to tell him how she had believed in him and his ties to Dumbledore when Harry and Ron were so adamantly against him, but quickly stopped herself. Perhaps that would be far too sappy and too far into Snape's personal matters. So, she contented herself with just relishing the fact that he was happy and that she'd surprised him for once. That was enough for now.

But, as well-adjusted the man seemed to be, the first indication that he was not doing quite as well as he let on had come the third night after Hermione regained consciousness. She had been having some trouble falling asleep—or rather, _a lot_ of trouble, since she'd been lying in the dark for about four hours with no luck—and was startled by a sudden yell drifting through the window. It could have only been Snape, who had taken to sleeping outside in the hammock after allowing Hermione to stay in his bed.

"No…! Don't…!"

Hermione froze in the bed, a chill going down her spine.

Was Snape having nightmares?

"No more…don't ask me…he'll die…"

Another chill went down Hermione's spine. Was it Harry that he was dreaming about? Or was he dreaming of Dumbledore, resisting his orders to send Harry to his death? Or maybe some other poor soul he was trying to save from Death's grip?

She heard him yell again, and shortly after she could hear him breathing heavily—she could imagine him hunched over, hair drooping over his face. From her place on the bed, she couldn't see what he was doing, but heard the rustle of the trees as he got out of the hammock. After that, silence.

Hermione wanted to believe that Snape's nightmares were few and far between—after all, he seemed quite healthy and happy during the day—but two nights after the first time, she was roused by another yell in the middle of the night. This time, she managed to drag herself out of the bed to stand at the window and found him tossing and turning in the hammock—it was a wonder that he didn't fall out.

"Stop…! I can't…don't want…she's dead…!"

Hermione crouched and hid herself as far underneath the windowsill as she could when he screamed and bolted upright, breathing as though there wasn't enough oxygen in the world. He sat, hunched over his knees and his hair obscuring his face, unmoving except for the heaving of his chest and shoulders. It seemed that he sat there for hours, though it couldn't have been longer than a few minutes, before he slowly got out of the hammock—he got up with the air of a man with the world bearing down on him, a man who had weathered a thousand storms, a man on his last legs…

He trudged toward the beach, his feet dragging in the sand, and stopped where the water met the earth.

For one terrifying moment, Hermione thought he might throw himself into the oncoming waves.

But he simply stood there, staring out into the ocean.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pulled out his wand and jabbed it at the night sky. Hermione's eyes widened in shock when a white phoenix burst into the air, circling around Snape once and bathing him its white glow before soaring into the sky and dissipating.

If she had needed any further confirmation that this man had changed, this was it.

His Patronus was now a phoenix.

He had let go.

Snape sank down onto his knees in weary relief regardless of the water lapping at his legs. Had he been reminding himself—confirming that it all wasn't a lie? That he'd really and truly let go of the past? It was certainly fitting: a phoenix, born again from its own ashes, almost like his incredible escape from Death's clutches and his subsequent life in Hawaii. Hermione wondered how often Snape had stood at the water's edge, casting his Patronus into the sky as reassurance to himself that what he had was real.

With a small smile, Hermione dragged herself back to bed. She had no trouble falling asleep this time.

* * *

"Hermione, are you all right?"

She blinked a few times and found Snape regarding her with a curious mix of intrigue and worry. With a laugh, she sat up and frowned when she found a pile of sand sliding from her stomach to her skirt. "What the—" she said irately, brushing the sand from her lap.

"You never struck me as a daydreamer," Snape said lazily, an amused smile on his face. "Didn't even flinch."

Hermione bristled, glaring at him. "You put the sand on me?"

"Like I said, didn't even flinch."

She couldn't think of a suitable retort, so she settled for dumping a fistful of sand onto his leg.

"You should choose your battles more carefully, Hermione," said Snape, giving her a sidelong glance. "Besides, is that any way to treat a man who has brought you a gift?"

"What, the coconut?"

He answered by clipping a frond of brown kelp to the waist of her skirt. It seemed to cling to her leg like plastic wrap on a dry day, and she felt a faint twinge on her leg where it touched—almost like an itch. She looked from the kelp frond to his face, which was a model utmost seriousness.

"You brought me seaweed?" she asked flatly, resisting the urge to throw sand at his face.

"Not just any seaweed. _Pyrifera repellentis_."

_Pyrifera repellentis? _Or, more commonly, magic-phobic kelp. She'd read about it once in a Herbology book: it was a type of magical kelp that grew off the coasts of the eastern Pacific Ocean, and got its namesake because of the way it was repelled by magic and attracted to non-magic, such as Muggles' legs. It looked just like its non-magical counterpart, _Macrocystis pyrifera_, and was likely a source of irritation for many beach-going Muggles getting tangled in it as they swam along the shore. But as far as she knew, it wasn't native to the waters around Hawaii.

"Thanks…I think…but where did you get it? I didn't think I grew around here," said Hermione, holding the frond in her hand and frowning when it clung to her fingers.

"It doesn't, but I persuaded Danny to acquire some from California for me," Snape said. "I thought it would help us figure out when your magic starts returning."

That certainly was a clever idea. The kelp would start pulling away from her once her magic started to recover—she took care to not think _IF my magic recovers_—and would perhaps signal when she could start using simple charms again. She looked to him and attempted her best cheeky smile. "It's quite fashionable, if I do say so myself," she said, smoothing it against her skirt. "You have good taste, Severus Snape."

He laughed and got to his feet. "Now you're getting it, Hermione Granger," he said, patting her shoulder as he headed for the house. "I'm going to start on dinner. See to it that you drag yourself to the house within the hour."

Hermione watched as he left, wondering what it was he thought she was "getting."

* * *

"Good moooorning!"

Hermione looked up from the newspaper she was reading and found Danny waving at her from the living room window. "Good morning, Danny. The front door is unlocked," she called, gesturing toward the door. He gave her a cheery nod and, within moments, was pulling up a chair across from her at the small dining table.

"So how are you feeling today, Hermione?" said Danny, flashing her a toothy smile. The man smiled a bit too much for her—she couldn't help but fear that he might be mentally unhinged or something.

"I'm well, thank you," she replied, putting her newspaper down. "Are you ready for later?"

"Totally ready. Severus gave me a vial of Veritaserum antidote the other day, just in case. Do you think this Ministry guy is gonna use it?"

"It's likely they will ask you to take it. Because of the nature of my job, they'll want to be doubly sure that you didn't extort state secrets from me," she said, frowning. Danny laughed and seemed to shrug it off with a nonchalant wave of his hand.

"State secrets, huh? Not sure what I'd do with them even if I had them," he said with a laugh, and Hermione was struck with an inexplicable urge to roll her eyes. "So how's that seaweed working out for you? Severus practically begged me to go find some when I went to California. I gotta say that it wasn't easy to get it without the Nons noticing."

The first time they met, when Snape had explained the situation to Danny, it had taken Hermione a few minutes to get used to the terminology Danny had been using. He had been going on about having family on his father's side that were "Nons," and it wasn't until Snape had carefully told him that Hermione had Non parents that she realized he was talking about Muggles, or "non"-magical people. She'd been mildly surprised that they weren't called Muggles in the US, but ended up mentally berating herself for assuming that British terms would be used in Hawaii. Now that she thought about it, "Muggle" did seem like a distinctly British word.

"Please, Danny. I do not beg."

Hermione turned to find Snape standing behind them in the hallway, arms crossed and an irritated frown on his face. "That's not how I remember it, buddy," Danny said, smirking. "What happened to Mr. 'Please, I'll be forever indebted—'"

"I was merely stroking your ego to get you to do something for me," Snape interrupted, a smirk appearing on his face as well. "I know full well that you're not as generous as you let those poor islanders think."

"This guy's the king of manipulation, Hermione. Must be the accent or something," Danny said, looking a tad sullen. Hermione stared at Danny as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end; if only he knew how right he was.

"It has nothing to do with my accent," said Snape, looking perfectly untroubled and taking a seat in the wicker armchair. "I have the voice of an angel."

Hermione choked on her glass of orange juice.

_God dammit._

"Voice of an angel my ass," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "How do you live with this guy, Hermione? I'd have cursed him to pieces by now."

Hermione watched in fascination as the two men continued in this manner for the next hour or so, insults flowing from their mouths as the both of them had some coffee and toast. She wondered if this was how Snape kept his sarcasm muscles up to snuff, insulting his friend like that. It seemed like a bizarre relationship to be sure, but neither Snape nor Danny seemed the least bit bothered by even the most scathing slurs directed at each other. It put a rather warm feeling in the pit of her stomach to see them go at it; it was nice to see that Snape was such good friends with Danny that they could do this without killing each other.

When it was nearly fifteen minutes to nine, Snape helped Hermione outside and took his leave, saying only that "I'll be watching." She expected he would be lounging around somewhere nearby with a Disillusionment Charm concealing him, perhaps with a coconut in hand as he watched the Ministry dunderheads interrogate her.

It didn't take long for Richard to arrive at Snape's house, looking absolutely miserable wearing a stuffy Muggle suit in the humid Hawaiian weather. He was accompanied by the person Hermione presumed was the Ministry-approved healer, a small Vietnamese woman who had the foresight to wear a light dress instead of more formal and suffocating clothes.

"Ah, good morning, Hermione. I—I hope you're well," said Richard nervously, pulling at his collar as sweat beaded on his forehead. To be honest, Hermione wasn't a fan of Richard Thompson—he was an awkward and clumsy man, and if he wasn't so incredibly knowledgeable about transportation magic, she was sure he'd have no business being an Unspeakable. He was a nice person, however, which was why they were on first-name terms—it's just that his awkwardness and clumsiness did get tiresome after a while.

"I'm feeling much better, thank you," she replied stiffly, nodding to him. Richard shuffled a bit on the porch, quite obviously uncomfortable with either himself or her cold tone. After a moment, he looked to Danny and held out his hand after quickly wiping it against his trousers.

"Er, you're Danny Takahashi, I presume? I'm Thompson—Richard Thompson."

Danny leapt to his feet and took Richard's hand, shaking it warmly. "Nice to meet you, Richard. I'm glad you made it out here okay," he said sweetly, which had the lovely effect of visibly relaxing Richard. If only he could have heard the insults spewing out of Danny's mouth just an hour before.

"This is Healer Tuyet Phuong," Richard said, and Healer Phuong stepped forward to offer her hand to Hermione and Danny. "She works at St. Mungo's and will be examining you today."

"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Granger, Mr. Takahashi," Phuong said. In stark contrast to Richard's nervous dithering, the healer was very businesslike and purposeful. "If you don't mind, let's get the examination out of the way so that you and Mr. Thompson have time to discuss your affairs before our portkey leaves."

Hermione didn't protest as Healer Phuong quickly and methodically went through all the same tests that Madam Pomfrey, though this time the wand-poking wasn't as uncomfortable. The moment Hermione had been dreading, however, was when Phuong handed her the same clear ball that Pomfrey had, and she couldn't help but give Danny an apprehensive glance as Phuong pressed her wand tip against the ball. Without even a word of warning, the ball began growing warm much faster than Pomfrey had done it, and before Hermione knew it, she was whimpering in pain, clutching at her chest as her vision quickly began fading into black.

"Stop it, stop it! You're hurting her!"

The next thing Hermione knew, she found Danny holding her protectively, glaring at Phuong and his hand clutching the one she'd been using to hold the glass ball—which was now discarded on the floor. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded as Phuong Summoned the glass ball into her hand, sending a terrifying ripple of pain through Hermione's body.

"Her story checks out, Mr. Thompson. I shall meet you at the portkey site," said Phuong, turning toward Richard and ignoring Danny completely. She glanced toward Hermione, a brief, apologetic look flashing across her face. "Forgive me, Ms. Granger. Ministry orders." And with that, she quickly took her leave.

"Right…right," Richard said quietly. "Er…do you mind if I take a seat, Mr. Takahashi?"

"Go for it," said Danny coldly. Hermione gave Danny a gentle push to let him know that he could stop holding her now thank you very much, and he got to his feet and stood behind her, wand menacingly tapping against his bicep as he fixed Richard with an icy glare.

"S-so, Hermione. I'm just here to verify that you're alive and well," said Richard timidly. "And to make sure that none of the Department's intelligence has been compromised."

"I see," Hermione said. The Department's intelligence was what it really was about—considering Healer Phuong's behavior, all this about her health and wellbeing was really just a guise, probably to make themselves seem more compassionate and humane.

"I have a small amount of Veritaserum that I'd like Mr. Takahashi to—to take. I can show you the necessary clearance forms the Ministry obtained from the US Department of Magical Affairs," Richard said quickly before either Danny or Hermione could protest. "It will only take a few minutes. I promise."

It was at this time that Hermione was infinitely grateful that the Department had sent Richard to check on her and not anyone else. The time he spent clumsily rummaging around in his briefcase for the clearance forms was just enough to allow Danny to surreptitiously down his vial of Veritaserum antidote. When Richard finally found the clearance form with the official US Department of Magical Affairs seal on it, he set it on the table and put the small Veritaserum vial in a circle at the center of the parchment. The circle glowed a brilliant blue and a small box underneath the circle showed the word "AUTHORIZED" in bold red letters.

Danny made a big show of looking suspicious of the single drop of Veritaserum that Richard administered into his mouth, and Hermione was quite impressed with how Danny managed to act as though he was under the effects of the potion. He answered each of Richard's questions with perfect monotone inflection just as they had practiced with Snape, and by the end of it, Richard had no qualms believing that Danny was the one who had found her and taken care of her. Indeed, Richard even revealed that the Department of Mysteries had done a background check on him, just like she and Snape expected and planned for—the latter forging official documents and Confunding relevant islanders to think that Danny had lived on the island for years. It was quite impressive what Snape had accomplished in only a week.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Takahashi. The effects should wear off in a few minutes," Richard said once they'd finished. Danny just stared blankly at him, though Hermione could've sworn that she saw his body relax in relief even if his face didn't show it.

"Richard, I wanted to ask you a question," Hermione said as Richard was packing up the forms. "Do you remember what I was handling before the accident? My memory from the incident is a bit hazy." Richard stopped for a moment to think, stroking his chin thoughtfully, before giving her a nervous smile.

"If I recall correctly, the smell in the lab suggested sliced clearbell roots," said Richard. "Unfortunately, the test portkey sucked up all the materials at your workstation, so the only way we could verify what had been there was from your logs for the day."

Clearbell roots, huh? It made sense, then, that the portkey might have reacted how it did—freshly sliced clearbell roots were highly reactive and considering the _other _highly reactive materials she was working with that day, it was no wonder the chain reaction occurred.

"Listen, I've got to go, Hermione," said Richard, getting to his feet. "I'm—I'm really sorry about what happened. I hope you get well soon." He looked so sad and apologetic that Hermione thought his face might melt off his head.

"You do understand the terms of this visit, correct?" Hermione asked before he could turn to leave. "You are not to disclose this location to anybody but the Department, or Danny will get the US authorities involved."

Richard shuffled nervously and nodded. "Give me a little credit as an Unspeakable, Hermione," he said, laughing weakly. "I will not speak of it."

With that, Richard finally took his leave, trudging off and leaving Danny and Hermione in silence. Hermione felt a dull, throbbing pain in her chest again and would have attributed it to the residual effects of the examination had Snape not suddenly appeared behind the palm trees with his wand out, a finger on his lips to silence her and Danny. He crept toward the corner of the porch and seemed to be watching Richard leave, and the five minutes he stood there felt like hours as the pain in Hermione's chest refused to dissipate. When he finally turned from the corner, he raised his wand in the air and muttered something, a violet ball of light spiraling into the air from his wand before dissipating above the house. Hermione groaned as the light left Snape's wand, a surge of pain spreading through her before the pain disappeared completely.

"The fool put an eavesdropping spell on the area," Snape said irritably as Hermione and Danny gave him curious looks. "I've removed it. Does that feel better?"

"Yes, thank you," Hermione said, managing a smile as she massaged her chest.

"So did I do good, Severus?" Danny asked, grinning. "That was fun. Never had to fool a government agent before."

"I think you could even be a spy. You're Magical Intelligence Agency material," said Snape sarcastically as he took a seat in the chair Richard had previously occupied. Hermione laughed—that was probably as close to a compliment that Danny was going to get.

"Think so? I should just shut down my business and join up," he laughed, leaning against the porch's railing as he twirled his wand in his fingers.

"Good riddance, then. Hermione and I won't have to suffer through your presence anymore," Snape said, smirking.

"Yeah, whatever. Just remember that you owe me one after this, Severus. I have a few things I—"

Hermione eyes widened in horror as Snape erupted into a fit of coughs, spraying flecks of blood over the porch's floorboards before he could clamp a hand to his mouth. He slid out of the chair and dropped to his knees, coughing violently as blood trickled from between his fingers.

"Severus? _Severus!_"

* * *

_A/N: Hmm...this ending's kinda cliffhanger-y, isn't it? Haha. Anywho, I've never written this fast before...I'm hoping my writing doesn't suffer because of it. Normally, I spend my time drawing, so it feels really good to exercise these writing muscles. _

_You know, you guys might like this. I drew it a couple years ago, and it's about Snape. You'll have to get rid of the spaces, though. I don't understand why this site still hates URLs after all these years. _http: / / murirark. deviantart. com/ art/ Forgiveness-122039117

_Thanks again for the lovely comments!_


	4. Chapter Four

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Four**

"Severus! _Severus!_"

Blood sprayed everywhere as Severus Snape removed his hand from his mouth to gesture toward his house's front door. "Kitchen—_koff_—cupboard—_koff—_potion—!" he choked, waving his blood-spattered hand at the front door. Without a word, Danny dashed inside as Snape doubled over in another fit of coughs. Hermione felt panic and terror welling up in her, but didn't know what to do with herself—her magic _and_ her legs wouldn't work, so she was of absolutely no use to him now. He couldn't die now—_he couldn't_. Worst-case scenarios began racing through her mind: Snape could have a degenerative disease, he could have some sort of fatal curse eating him from the inside out, _she_ could have affected his health with the disastrous combination of materials she'd been working with when the portkey acted up…

All further thought was forestalled when Danny burst from the front door, nearly skidding off the porch steps before scrambling toward Snape and thrusting a bottle of deep crimson potion toward him. He snatched it and managed to stop coughing long enough to jam the bottle to his lips and drink deeply. Hermione all but stopped breathing as he gulped the red liquid down and inhaled sharply when Snape finished off the bottle's contents and let out exhaled in relief.

"I'm—I'm sorry you had to see that," said Snape quietly, looking away as he wiped his blood-smeared face on a handkerchief.

Sorry? He was _sorry_ that he was sick and coughing up blood?

"What's this about? What is—are you sick?" Hermione demanded, clenching her fists in her lap to keep them from trembling.

"Danny, leave," said Snape, looking wearily up at him. Without so much as a look of protest, Danny nodded and got to his feet before trotting off out of sight, leaving Hermione to sit there in confusion.

"What's this about, Profe—Severus," Hermione said, more gently this time.

He pulled himself back into the chair and rested his elbows on the armrests, his entire body seeming to sag down into the frame of the chair.

"Nagini's venom."

Hermione couldn't help but stare at him in shock. Surely someone like the Half-Blood Prince could have brewed the antidote for Nagini's venom; even the St. Mungo's healers had managed to procure some when Arthur Weasley was attacked in front of the Department of Mysteries. So what was different this time? Why couldn't he cure himself with a potion when others had cured Arthur Weasley so easily?

"There's an antidote," Hermione said slowly, once she'd organized her thoughts. She expected him to give some sort of sarcastic comment about how she had offended him by suggesting he didn't know of it, but Snape merely nodded and didn't look at her.

"Indeed."

"But…?"

"But the concentration of venom she injected into me was much too high for the antidote to completely eradicate."

"Make a stronger one."

As though it was the easiest thing in the world.

"I can't. Nagini's was not normal snake venom."

"I don't think Nagini was a normal snake by any stretch of imagination," said Hermione, frowning. It seemed to draw a small smile out of him, which was slightly reassuring.

"I haven't yet created a potion to clear it from my internal organs," he said. He gave a small, resigned laugh that Hermione didn't like. "All I can do is halt its progress when it gets too far and repair the damage that it does. Though I can't say I've been trying too hard to cure it."

That wasn't a satisfying answer at all and only served to worry her even more. "But Mr. Weasley—" she started, but was immediately interrupted.

"I'm sure you know that venomous snakes can control the amount of venom they inject when they bite."

The memory of Harry getting bitten by Nagini back in Godric's Hollow suddenly came to mind—she had been able to heal him using only Essence of Dittany then, and she'd never thought much more about it because she'd been so relieved that he was still alive.

"Arthur Weasley was meant to be a warning. But when Nagini bit _me_…I was meant to be dead," Snape continued quietly. "It was hours before Minerva came for me, which must have given the venom enough time to settle into my organs. I had antidote on hand, but I did not anticipate for it to integrate itself the way it did. It's almost like a virus."

To Hermione's horror, he started laughing as though it was all a non-issue, like he had a mild case of dragon pox—for some reason, it made her angry to see that he was just brushing his health off like that, _especially_ after he had gone so far as to survive a neck wound given by a venomous snake. He had dared to defy death and was somehow content with oh-dear-I'm-dying-eh-who-cares? The frown on her face became more pronounced as she clenched her fists tighter, her fingernails digging into her palms.

"Why are you laughing? It's your health!"

"It's manageable. I shouldn't even be alive, so I'll take what I can get," he said, unperturbed. At this point, her anger was becoming inversely proportional to how much he cared about the situation—the more indifference that he showed, the angrier she became.

"But—!"

"Are you feeling well enough to go surfing?"

"Don't deflect—wait, what?"

He gave her a self-satisfied smile after successfully derailing the conversation—indeed, it came close to being a train wreck— and looked to be highly enjoying the sight of her bewildered face. "I asked if you were feeling well enough to go surfing," he said. "You can sit on the board."

"You're deflecting!"

"Indeed." They stared at each other for a brief moment, Hermione silently bristling at his audacity, before he got to his feet and said flatly, "Are you coming or not?"

She wanted to keep arguing, to wrestle the truth out of him, but the look on his face made it clear he would either continue deflecting the conversation or simply go surfing without her. Deflated, Hermione gestured vaguely down at her legs. "Fine, but how do you expect me to swim like this?"

"I don't."

She hardly knew what was happening when he took her hand and hoisted her up, somehow twisting himself underneath her arms to carry her piggy-back as she gave a squeak of dismay. She was never a fan of piggy-back rides—the feeling of being carried was uncomfortable and a bit humiliating—but she clung to him nonetheless for fear of sliding off.

"You bastard, Severus Snape," Hermione muttered, though she couldn't keep the small smile off her face. "Talk about changing the topic."

"Insufferable know-it-all," he said, though the all-too-familiar words held no malice. The way he said it—it sounded almost like a fond nickname. "Just be quiet and hold on."

His physical strength was rather impressive and certainly not what she would have expected from him, as he not only carried her around the house to get the worn longboard hidden among some shrubbery, but also carried the board without it dragging in the sand. She could feel his chest heaving as he walked across the beach and loosened her grip in an attempt to let go, but he shook his head and hoisted her up higher on his back. If it was straining him at all to carry her and the board across the loose sand, his slightly labored breathing was the only indication.

"Wait, my clothes! Your shirt!" Hermione cried as Snape began wading into the shallows, her long skirt dipping into the water. He turned his head slightly, and she felt him laugh though no sound came from his mouth.

"It's only water."

Hermione unconsciously held her breath as they waded deeper and deeper into the shallows—the water wasn't cold, but it was just so _weird_ that he was doing this—until it got to the point that Snape could no longer walk and instead began swimming, using the longboard for support. She instinctively tightened her grip when she felt his feet leave the sand and couldn't help but stiffen her body as he slowly kicked farther from the shore.

"You're choking me."

Immediately, she loosened her death grip around his neck. "Sorry," she said in embarrassment. He turned his head again, and once more she felt his chest move in a silent laugh.

"Just trust me."

By the time he finally stopped pushing forward, the shore seemed miles away, the beachside house and trees sitting against the deep blue sky like a charming little diorama. He eased her from his back and draped one of her arms over the longboard, and immediately she clung to the board as though her life depended on it. But after a moment, she realized that even with her currently unreliable legs, it was quite easy to float in the warm ocean water, and she let a delighted noise escape her mouth before she could stop herself. It seemed, however, that Snape hadn't noticed—he was floating at the other end, his chin resting on the longboard and his eyes peacefully closed. It certainly was peaceful enough to sleep, with the ocean gently rocking them back and forth in the water.

Hermione took the opportunity to look around and, to her dismay, quickly noticed something.

"Severus, there aren't any waves. It's flat."

He didn't even open his eyes. "Indeed," was all he was bothered to say.

"Didn't you take me out here to surf? You can't surf if there aren't any waves."

"I suppose not," he said sleepily. "Take this opportunity to stop thinking."

"Stop thinking?"

"Don't think. Don't think about your health, don't think about my health, just…don't think. It's a bit like Occlumency."

That was an interesting thought. She forced herself to relax and simply flow with the calm undulations of the water, pushing the thoughts from her mind as best she could. When she focused on how the water felt against her skin and how her body floated alongside the longboard, it was no time at all before she was resting her chin on the board as well, her mind blissfully blank. It was as though all her worries were being washed away by the water. Perhaps this was how Snape had washed away the years and years of pain and vitriol, drifting aimlessly in the ocean like a piece of driftwood.

Perhaps this was his way of showing her.

"Hermione."

Her body jerked as she was pulled out of her daze, and she groaned at how bright the sun seemed to be. She peered at Snape curiously once her eyes adjusted and found that he had moved to the other side of the board so that they were facing each other.

"Why don't you tell Potter and Weasley to come visit? If I know them, they're probably going insane that they have no idea where you are," he asked casually, shaking water from his face. Hermione eyed him suspiciously.

"What brought this on? Inviting them here means that they could run into you," she said slowly, frowning. It was true that Harry and Ron had been going crazy not knowing where she was and who she was with—she had sent them each a couple of letters that vaguely expressed her safety with a nameless guardian and they had both replied with such a vehement desire to "rescue" her that it was as though she'd been kidnapped by Lord Voldemort himself.

"As much as I enjoy the idea of them squirming, they should probably know that you are safe and sound. And the only way they'll be convinced of that is to see you."

Though she wanted nothing more than to see her best friends, it felt wrong to allow Snape to put himself out there like that for her. He'd lived in this beautiful solitude for so long, and if the Ministry visit wasn't enough to jeopardize it, allowing Harry and Ron to come could ruin everything. He'd been so gracious to her and had done so much—she couldn't bear it if she was the reason he lost the peaceful life that he so deserved. If she really tried, she could think of loads of reasons that Snape would want Harry and Ron to come to his island. If she really considered every possibility in the realm of imagination, then Snape could very well be out for revenge of some sort and all this business about being a reformed person could all be an elaborate ruse to lure the whole Golden Trio to a remote location.

But when she looked at the man floating idly in the water—when she thought about everything he did for them, when she looked at his _eyes_—there was no way that could be the case.

"No…I don't think that's a good idea. It's not fair to you."

He stared at her with an odd, unreadable expression on his face—she couldn't tell if he was going to laugh or cry or _what_.

"To speak of fairness for someone like me," he finally said, "is absurd."

He clenched his left fist and his eyes quickly flitted down toward his forearm before he looked away, absently gazing off into the endless expanse of water around them. Hermione had looked at his arm before, of course, trying to see if the Dark Mark was still there—it was completely gone, erased upon the defeat of its creator. It would be ridiculous to think that he could simply forget how it burned—how it called him—how he had chosen to take it—how he'd associated himself with _those_ people—

But even after all that, if it wasn't for him, everything—_everything_—would have been lost. And so to speak of fairness for a man like him…was perfectly _fair_.

So, she did the only logical thing that came to mind at the moment and splashed water in his face.

"What was that for?" Snape sputtered, slightly pulling away from the board and shaking the water from his eyes.

"You're talking like a _dunderhead_, Mr. Snape. Ten points from Slytherin."

The look of utter shock on his face was _priceless_.

It took him a few moments to regain control of his face, and when he did, he started laughing a low, quiet chuckle. She watched in amusement as he slowly escalated into full-on laughter and briefly sank under water as he lost control, sputtering and flailing a bit before he caught hold of the board and steadied himself. "Impressive," he said, resting his chin on the board and breathing heavily, peering at her through a curtain of wet hair. "It's a pity that I'm your only audience for such a promising new stand-up career."

Hermione snorted into the water, trying and failing to stifle a smile. She wondered if that was what all this was about; perhaps Snape felt bad that he was the only company she had while she waited for her magic and health to return.

Health, huh…?

_Dammit, he's trying to distract me._

Suddenly, it was clear. He was trying to distract her from the very troubling fact that he'd been coughing blood up all over the porch while Nagini's virus-venom was destroying his guts. She'd _nearly_ forgotten, what with all the lovely drifting in the water and all the effort he was putting in to get Harry and Ron to come visit.

"Why don't we make a deal, Severus?" said Hermione as a thought came to mind. "If you give me your notes on Nagini's antivenom—I know you have some—then I'll invite Harry and Ron over so I can tell them all the jokes I learned from you."

If he wasn't going to bother curing himself, she was sure as hell going to try.

"You can't brew potions in your condition," he said, looking at her dubiously. "My notes wouldn't do you any good in that regard."

"I can prepare a procedure for when I _can_ brew potions, thank you."

He regarded her for a moment and for a moment she thought he was going to shoot down her lovely plan, until he nodded once.

"Very well. It's a deal."

And he sealed the deal by sloshing water all over her face.

* * *

Hermione had meant to beleaguer Snape into giving her his antidote notes immediately upon returning to the shore, but after he had dragged the both of them out of the water, clothes sopping wet, he had deposited her on the warm sand and conveniently left her there to dry off while he put the longboard away. By the time she realized he wasn't going to come back for her, she was much too tired to do anything about it and drifted off to sleep in the sand still feeling like the ocean was rocking her to and fro. Her body was drained after their little trip into the ocean; after they had finally reached their agreement, she'd tried to do a bit of swimming and found that her legs responded quite nicely in water—better than they did on land, in any case. So she had spent the last half hour or so swimming in circles around the surfboard, relishing the exercise she was getting after sitting around for a week.

"…I've already said it's not a problem. You're not my keeper!"

"Come on, it's getting worse…What are you going to tell her?"

"It's none of your concern!"

"Oh, get over yourself, tough guy."

The sounds of a nearby argument slowly began pulling Hermione back into wakefulness. It took her a few moments before she was conscious enough to realize that it was Danny's voice she was hearing, and that he seemed quite troubled over something getting worse—Snape's health, perhaps?

"Surely you didn't come back here just to pester me about my health!"

"No. I caught those Ministry guys from this morning sneaking around. I wanted to let you know."

At that, Hermione's eyes snapped open. The sun, high overhead, was overpowering and she blindly squirmed in the sand until her eyes adjusted to the light. Immediately she rolled over and pushed herself upright and found that both Snape and Danny were silently staring at her from the porch, almost like a pair of children caught red-handed with the ball that broke the window. "What's this about the Ministry people?" she said sharply, struggling to pull herself to her feet.

"Found those two poking around down that way," Danny said, jabbing his thumb north along the beach. "I almost missed them, but it was a good thing that moron Richard wore a suit. Saw him as soon as he was out in the open."

"What did they want?" asked Hermione, slowly making her way toward the porch steps.

"I hid and listened to them for a bit," Danny said, holding up what Hermione recognized as a variant of Extendable Ears. "Richard is an idiot, but that Asian lady's no joke. I don't think she's your run-of-the-mill healer...She was talking about how she had orders from some Matthews guy to make sure you weren't secretly collaborating with Americans or whatever."

"I see…" Hermione murmured, frowning. Marcus Matthews was one of the higher-ups at the Department, and though she wasn't too familiar with what his work was, she knew that he was often involved in matters of secrecy and security. And considering the nature of her extraordinary departure from the Department, it was no surprise that Matthews would jump to such conclusions.

"Anywho, I'd keep an eye out for more Ministry lackeys," said Danny, stuffing the Extendable Ears into his pocket. "I watched them leave, but I dunno if they'll be back and I gotta get back to Honolulu and sign for a shipment of dragon livers."

"Understood. Thank you," said Snape, nodding to him as he hopped off the porch. He cheerily helped Hermione up the steps before trotting off onto the beach to increase the distance between them, Disapparating with a faint _POP_. The first day they met, they discovered that her body reacted violently to Apparition and Disapparition in close proximity, as she'd nearly collapsed and blacked out upon his departure that day.

"I told you it was a bad idea that I stay here…" Hermione said miserably, doubling over and brushing sand from clothes and hair.

When Snape did not say anything, she looked up and found him looking at her in slight disappointment. "Giving up so easily, Hermione?" he said lightly. "Clearly, the lack of magic is affecting your reasoning abilities."

"What do you mean?"

"Just because I removed the wards on the _house_ does not mean I didn't put any up in the surrounding area. Don't worry; they won't see me," said Snape. "The shame of allowing two Ministry fools to find me would be too much. Minerva would never let me hear the end of it."

"I see," said Hermione, feeling slightly foolish.

"At any rate, I have a potion I must attend to. I'll be finished shortly," he said, and without waiting for her to respond, swept inside the house—if he had been wearing his attire from ten years ago, Hermione was sure his robes would be billowing in his wake. She could almost see a ghost of them if she really squinted.

"Do you mind if I see your antidote notes?" she asked brightly as he swept by.

Hermione stood there blankly for a moment as he passed with only a smirk for an answer, before she hobbled into the house after him, gripping the door frame for support as watched him disappear into the hallway.

"Your notes! Please? Hello?"

* * *

_A/N: Not so happy with this chapter. It's a bit short, but if I didn't cut it off here, it'd probably double in size before the next break point. Ahaha. _

_Again, a big thank you to all the reviewers. It means a lot to me. : )_

_One last thing-I've been spending so much time writing this that Snape started infiltrating my dreams. Look at what the man is reducing me to! (remove the spaces) http: / / murirark. deviantart. com/ art/ Dreamscape-My-Pal-Snape-197735259_


	5. Chapter Five

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Five**

Wiggentree bark.

Dittany oil.

Moondew.

Concentrated dragon blood.

Lionfish spines.

Venom.

Parchment covered every inch of the small dinner table, each sheet covered with lists and equations and angry red corrections to said lists and equations. Hermione had managed to pester Snape enough that he caved and provided her with his notes on the antidote for Nagini's venom, and she'd spent the past week poring over them. Severus Snape had a brilliant mind and despite her own mental acuity, it had taken her some time to get herself into the right frame of mind to even comprehend what he had written. He'd gone through everything, it seemed; from potions to healing spells—he tried it all. But Hermione had some of her own ideas—useful things she'd learned over the years researching with the Department of Mysteries—and her skill with Arithmancy was one of the few things that Snape didn't even come close to matching. With their combined knowledge, she knew that she could find a cure for the venom eating away at his tissues.

A strange sense of urgency had filled her. Danny's words were still ringing in her ears.

"_Come on, it's getting worse…_"

Of course, Snape looked perfectly fine, even robust…when he was on the crimson restorative potion. It turned out that he had to take it with some regularity to keep things like coughing up rivers of blood from happening, and that the episode after the Ministry visit came completely by surprise. Still, his nonchalance over the fact that his internal organs could disintegrate into a bloody mush was distressing, and even if _he_ had accepted the fact, Hermione sure as hell couldn't.

"Moondew is not nearly strong enough."

Hermione found Snape leaning over her shoulder, peering at the latest parchment she was scribbling Arithmancy equations on with slight interest. "I know," she murmured, pensively stroking her chin with the feather tip of her quill. "I want to try clearbell roots instead."

This seemed to interest Snape. "A good idea. Dangerous, though—you'll need to have ravengrass to dampen its effects," he said. "Unless, of course, you intend to paralyze me beyond all repair. I must say that surfing would be rather difficult in that condition."

"Of course I'd add ravengrass. It wouldn't do to have a quadriplegic out there," said Hermione, a slight hint of sarcasm in her voice. She was never the sarcastic type, but she found it was much easier to deal with Sarcastic Severus if she was as well. It was beginning to come more naturally to her, at least. "Why didn't you try clearbell, Severus?"

"I'm sure you know that the restrictions on clearbell make it…prohibitively difficult to obtain," Snape said.

_Not that you tried, I'm sure_, Hermione thought irritably, frowning. But what came out of her mouth was instead, "I suppose."

Clearbell, a delicate and temperamental shrub that produced translucent bell-shaped flowers, was a restricted plant due to its powerful properties and thus required a lengthy clearance process in order to purchase it. It was one of the materials used to keep Time-Turner sand in check, which is why Hermione had been using it in her research and why it might help stop the degeneration in Snape's organs.

Having something to work on put Hermione in high spirits, which was only helped by the fact that her magic _and_ her ability to walk were beginning to return. The little frond of magic-phobic kelp that Snape had given her the previous week began hovering away from her body, and just this morning she'd been practicing _lumos _and Levitation charms with only faint, negligible twinges in her chest. She'd gotten a little overzealous, though—she tried to transfigure one of her shirts into a tank top and found herself curled up on the floor waiting for the pain to subside. But, _lumos _and _wingardium leviosa_ were still spells and they reassured her immensely. As for her legs, it seemed that swimming had been quite therapeutic and after a few more jaunts in the ocean, she was no longer hobbling like a paraplegic. She certainly wouldn't be able to run a marathon or even run down the beach, but at least she could (mostly) walk.

Things were pretty great.

Per her agreement with Snape, last week she had invited Harry and Ron to visit, but they were coming today and wouldn't be arriving for another hour or so. They hadn't come straight away since she had asked Harry to bring her some potion books as well as a small amount of clearbell roots; the books alone took a few days to track down, but the real time-sink was filling out the forms for getting approved to buy the clearbell. Harry had owled her last night and informed her that he finally got it and that they'd catch a portkey to Hawaii as soon as possible.

"Well, the Golden Trio will be reunited shortly," said Snape, getting up from his seat. "I shall be around." She put her quill down and watched as he left for who-knows-where, wondering what he'd be up to all day if he was planning on avoiding the house. Perhaps he'd be out harvesting more seaweed or something.

After writing one last note on her parchment, she put the quill down and got to her feet, stretching and exhaling in relief when her back let out a few gruesome cracks. She slipped her flip-flops on and headed for the door, hitching her skirt up a bit. It was actually a sarong that Snape bought for her in town, and she had grown quite fond of it; it was flowery and light blue and, since it was meant to simply be wrapped around her body, was infinitely more comfortable than her normal clothes—which were more suited to Britain than Hawaii and untransfigurable due to her condition. Snape could have transfigured them for her, of course, but he flat-out refused, insisting that he had no sense of fashion.

A smile spread across her face as she walked down a seldom-used dirt road lined with tall trees stretching their branches across the roadway, enjoying the way the light filtered through the foliage above. It was a nice road to walk, as it was quite old and quite out of the way so it was always quiet. It wound through a forest and, from what Snape told her, circled the entire circumference of the small island. There was a clearing a mile or so down that was authorized for portkeys and other magical transportation, and it was there that she'd wait for her friends.

When she got to the clearing, she took a seat on the roots of an enormous tree and pulled out her wand. "_Wingardium leviosa_," she murmured, flicking her wand at a clump of dirt and smiling as it drifted into the air.

No pain.

She couldn't hold in a delighted giggle as she made the dirt clump zoom to and fro across the clearing, willing it to zip along faster and faster. It was cathartic, almost like she was pummeling a punching bag after a stressful day at work.

Her fun came to an end when two figures spun into existence in the center of the clearing right in the path of her little dirt clod.

"_Yowch!_ The bloody hell was that?" Ron Weasley sputtered, staggering backward as he got a face full of dirt, dropping the tree branch he was holding.

"Hermione!" Harry Potter exclaimed, stepping forward to meet her as she threw her arms around him. He had been holding the tree branch as well and tossed it away among the trees as Hermione hugged him close.

"Sorry, Ron," said Hermione, disengaging from Harry and pulling Ron into a hug. He brushed the last of the dirt from his face and gave her a bewildered look.

"Blimey, Hermione, I thought you _lost_ your magic, and here you are attacking me!" he said as she dusted his hair off.

"Sorry, sorry. I was just practicing levitation charms—I didn't mean to get you," Hermione said, stifling a grin.

"You're looking well, Hermione," said Harry, grinning. "It's only been a couple of weeks and you already look like an islander—you have a tan and everything."

She took a step back and examined her friends. They had worn light clothing like she told them—both were sporting knee-length shorts and collared polo shirts—but their skin looked so white and pasty that it was hard not to laugh. "It's really good to see you two," she said, managing to suppress the desire to burst into laughter. "Thanks for coming to visit."

"We would've come earlier if we knew where you were," said Ron. "Why didn't you contact us straight away?"

"I—didn't think I'd be stuck here for so long," Hermione said quickly. It wasn't so much a lie as it was withholding the truth—the truth that she hadn't wanted to jeopardize Snape's location. "But my magic isn't coming back as fast as I'd like."

"Is that what the potion books and the clearbell are all about?" Harry asked as they began following Hermione from the clearing.

"Not quite. I'll tell you later, okay?"

Her two friends seemed to thoroughly enjoy the walk on the forest road, marveling at the untouched nature, and they fell into conversation as easily as if they'd just been taking a stroll through Diagon Alley. She and Ron had parted amicably—the both of them eventually realizing that they made better friends than lovers—and so it was almost like old times, traipsing around in their little trio. They seemed to make an unspoken agreement to discuss more serious matters once they got to the house and instead chattered about things like the goings-on of the Weasley family and the hilarious theories the tabloids had regarding her sudden disappearance.

"You should've seen the face Mum made when she saw what rubbish _Witch Weekly _published about you, Hermione," Ron said before contorting his face into what Hermione presumed to be an imitation of Mrs. Weasley's expression—she couldn't imagine Mrs. Weasley making that face, but from the sound of the article, Hermione thought that perhaps her expression was just that horrified.

"Somehow they got the idea that you were some sort of Unspeakable spy having a love affair with a handsome foreign agent," Harry laughed. "Ginny just about lost it when she read it. She was laughing for about half an hour."

"That's ridiculous," said Hermione, laughing along and trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that the Ministry visit might have had something to do with it. While Richard was certainly able to hold his tongue regarding classified information, it was a distinct possibility that a passerby might have caught little snippets of conversation between him and any other Department personnel. And, as she learned in the years following the war, any seemingly innocuous shred of information could be twisted into a tabloid article.

When her friends suddenly fell silent behind her, she turned to peer at them over her shoulder. "What is it?" she asked curiously.

They were staring speechlessly out at the scenery before them. The road had emerged from the forest and the beach and surrounding area were in clear view, and it seemed to have floored her poor friends with its beauty. "You picked a good place to get stranded without magic," Ron said weakly, staring out into the vivid blue ocean with his mouth hanging open.

"It's like something out of television," said Harry, letting out a quiet laugh of disbelief.

"I'm just glad I didn't get stuck in Antarctica or something," Hermione said, grinning. She thanked whatever gods were looking down on her for not sending her to some frigid, frozen wasteland—magic or no, she would've had a tough time staying alive if she had suddenly appeared at the South Pole.

"You sure you're staying here for your health, Hermione?" Ron said as they followed her toward the lone beachside house. "This is unreal…"

She led them to the porch, where Snape had conjured a small round table and extra wicker chair. "Sit out here and I'll get some tea," she said, gesturing toward the chairs and striding inside. She quickly peered into the hallway to see if Snape had holed himself up in the extra room to work on potions, but the sheet of colored paper he had pinned to the door was on its green side, indicating that nobody was in the room. With a shrug, she turned back for the kitchen and pulled out her wand, staring at the green kettle on the stove—how much would it hurt to conjure hot water for the kettle?

Throwing caution to the wind and hoping she wouldn't collapse in the kitchen and hit her head on something, she held her breath and tapped the kettle with her wand. Pain rippled through her body, but it was nothing like the pain from trying to transfigure her shirt and it quickly subsided, leaving her with a kettle full of hot water and a satisfied smile on her face. Moments later, Hermione was carrying a tray out to her friends, who seemed to have been unable to sit down and were instead standing in the sand, admiring the ocean view. She looked from the chairs, which played host to their discarded courier bags, to the beach and smiled. Bugger the porch—they'd have their tea out on the beach.

"If I were you, I don't think I'd want to leave," said Ron as she handed him the tray to hold. "Where's the bloke you're staying with?"

"Oh, he's…er…shy," Hermione said lightly as she poured tea into the cups. "I don't know if he'll be around today."

"That's too bad," said Harry, slight disappointment in his voice. "I would've liked to thank him for taking such good care of you."

"Right…" Hermione trailed off vaguely as she passed Harry a teacup and had Ron put the tray down. She wondered how Snape would take to being thanked about something like that, by the Boy Who Lived and Then Killed the Dark Lord no less. The old Snape would have scowled and swept away, but the new Snape…

They must've made a quaint little scene, sitting in the sand and sipping at their teacups. Harry and Ron began relating the latest in the Ministry happenings and, as expected, the upper echelons of the Ministry were all in a tizzy over the disappearance of one of the Department's best Unspeakables, worrying about the classified information stored in Hermione's head that was being put at risk in a foreign country in which they had no jurisdiction. From what Harry had managed to gather, they were worried that Hermione had somehow left of her own accord and had somehow taken down the Department of Mysteries' security wards in order to do so. All the people who personally knew Hermione immediately discarded the idea as rubbish, but predictably, the older bureaucrats seemed to have been struck with intense paranoia. She wasn't entirely sure what sort of power another country might gain from her research on portkeys, but she had learned not to think too hard about the logic the Ministry employed (because often their logic resembled anything _but_).

"So why did you have us track down all those books?" asked Ron as he finished off the rest of his tea. "Are you doing some work while you're here?"

"Yeah, a bit. I'm trying to make a potion to cure a—disease," Hermione said carefully. "It makes your lungs and other organs…bleed out."

"Do _you_ have it?" Ron asked in horror, and she quickly shook her head.

"No, no, it's not for me," she said, waving her hands and attempting to give them a reassuring smile. "It's a favor for the man I'm staying with."

"Must be one heck of a potion, then. Trying to get clearbell clearance was like trying to pull teeth," Harry said, giving her a weary laugh. "I'm convinced that if it hadn't been me asking, we'd still be at the Ministry signing forms."

"I really appreciate it, Harry."

Hermione was about to pull Harry into a hug when she heard someone approaching from the more dense end of the cluster of trees. She found a shirtless Snape carrying his surfboard toward them, looking furtive and his hair dripping water. He was looking toward the porch and, when he realized nobody was there, his eyes darted toward the beach and fixed on them as he froze in his tracks. It was clear that he had expected to sneak around the trees in order to obscure his entrance—_why_ he wanted to do so was beyond Hermione, but she didn't pretend to understand what the hell went through that man's mind sometimes.

"Is—is that—" came Harry's weak voice.

The tension in the air was almost tangible.

Nobody dared to move.

Abruptly, Snape hurried toward the house, hiding himself behind the surfboard as he passed before dropping it unceremoniously underneath his hammock once his back was to them. Without a backward glance, he swept inside the house and shut the front door behind him.

"Hermione—Hermione, you're—that's—" Harry whispered, slowly getting to his feet. "_He's alive_…"

The sound of hacking coughs and the crashes of falling kitchenware reached them through the open window, and before Hermione knew what she was doing, she dashed for the house and threw the door open. The first thing she noticed was the open pot and pan cupboard in the kitchen—it seemed the lower shelf had collapsed and sent all its contents onto the floor. She rushed into the kitchen and found Snape on all fours on the floor, pots and pans scattered around him and the floor covered with broken glass and a faintly smoking crimson liquid.

"Dropped the potion," Snape gasped without turning to see who had arrived, managing to force out his words before coughing and splattering blood all over the lower cabinets.

"_Is there more?_" Hermione asked frantically, almost dancing in place.

"In—_koff_—the other room—bottle by the door—" was all that Hermione heard before she dashed into the hallway and toward the potion room.

A dull pain began throbbing in her chest as she approached the door—almost like an invisible force warning her to turn back—but she pushed forward nonetheless, throwing the door open and groaning as her knees buckled underneath her. The potion room was full of magic—almost too much for her body to handle—and it was only the thought of finding the crimson potion that kept the pain from rendering her unconscious. Fortunately, she didn't have to look far; a small bottle was on a worktable to the left of the door, sitting next to a cauldron emitting a faint blue smoke. She snatched it and turned back, shutting the door behind her and stumbled forward as her knees gave out, only to find that Ron caught her arm and pulled her to her feet.

Wordlessly, he helped her back to the kitchen, where Harry was hovering behind Snape's coughing form, unsure of what to do with himself. "Severus, here!" Hermione cried, stumbling forward and uncorking the bottle as Ron released her. Snape took it, fingers trembling, and gulped the potion down before wearily collapsing with his back against the kitchen cupboards.

"Thank you," he breathed, resting his head back against the cupboard in relief.

Discolored, purple lines decorated his chest, all spreading like plant roots from the ugly, raised scar on his neck. Hermione was overcome with worry—she'd seen him shirtless before, and he always looked perfectly fine apart from the scar on his neck. Was that why he had hidden behind surfboard? To obscure the veins on his chest? "Danny was right," Hermione said quietly, kneeling down beside him and offering him a paper towel. She gently touched his skin where it was discolored and found that he winced ever so slightly when she put pressure on it. "It's getting worse, isn't it? It's not just bleeding that's the problem, is it?"

To her dismay and irritation, he didn't answer and instead turned his eyes to a bewildered Harry. "Hello, Potter," he said as he slowly got to his feet and wiped his bloodied hand with the paper towel. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he extended his hand to Harry. A peace offering, perhaps? A gesture of good faith?

Harry only stared, wide-eyed.

And he took Snape's hand, pulling him into a hug.

"P-Potter, what are you—"

"Professor Snape, you're alive…I thought you—thought you were dead…" Harry said, his voice bordering on a sob. "Why didn't you come back? Why didn't you—"

"I…have grown to like it here, Potter," Snape said quietly. "I have no intention of returning there."

When Harry let go and pulled away, his shirt dotted with blood from Snape's chest, Hermione caught sight of the tears that had rolled down his face. "H-how?" he said, wiping his face on his sleeve. "I saw you—I saw you in the Shrieking Shack…There was a funeral…"

"Honestly, did the war teach you nothing?" said Snape, and immediately the heaviness in the air seemed to dissipate. He rolled his eyes and busied himself with wiping the blood off his skin, looking quite bored. "Did none of you check to see _just_ how dead I was?"

Harry looked disconcerted, almost stricken. "Wh-what?" was all he managed to say.

"Try to think, Potter. Did they ever open the casket?" Snape said offhandedly as he waved his wand and sent the pots and pans on the floor back to the cupboard where they belonged.

"No…they didn't," Harry said quietly. "I thought—it made sense, you being you, after all. Didn't think you would want people staring at you."

Snape actually looked slightly surprised at that and raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, thank you, Potter," he said. Hermione gave Ron a sidelong glance and found him staring open-mouthed at the whole exchange—all the blood seemed to drain out of his face at the sound of "thank you" coming from Snape's lips.

"You're—very different, Professor," said Harry. It was obvious that he was struggling to keep his mind from falling apart.

"Surely you don't prefer verbal and emotional abuse over an expression of gratitude," Snape said, smirking as he Vanished the spilled potion on the floor, glass and all. "I'm out of practice, but I'm sure I could manage something. I have some potions in the other room that you could bungle, and if you like, I can yell at you for it."

Hermione couldn't help but let out a snort of amusement, but it seemed her friends were more confounded and terrified than amused by his sarcasm. She felt a little bad—she'd had much more time to get used to Snape and if they were feeling anything like she had the first night, they were probably ready to empty their stomach contents. "Minerva always speaks very highly of you, Potter. I was under the impression that you are still as outspoken as you were before," Snape said, frowning. "Here you are gaping like a fish."

"Min—Professor McGonagall knows you're here?" Harry sputtered, looking indignant. Snape let out a laugh, at which Ron seemed to visibly shudder.

"Indeed, Potter. She's the one who helped me move out here, after all," said Snape.

"Why the bloody hell didn't she tell me?"

"I asked her not to. Minerva is rather good at keeping secrets. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to put a shirt on. Unless you enjoy _this_," Snape said, gesturing vaguely at his shirtless torso. "Though I imagine you don't, and I wouldn't blame you."

Harry watched, bemused, as Snape swept off into the hallway, before he rounded on Hermione, eyes blazing but glistening with tears. "_How the hell did you end up here with him?_" he hissed. "_Did McGonagall tell you?"_

"No, I just…showed up," Hermione said patiently—it was unsurprising that Harry was upset. "I thought I was dead the first time I saw him. Then he laughed at me and I _really_ thought I was dead." She had hoped to get Harry and Ron to laugh in order to lighten the mood a little, and though Ron let out a chuckle, Harry still looked distraught.

"But…why here? How—"

"I don't know. Really, I don't."

Harry and Hermione stared at each other a moment, Hermione hoping that he would sincerely believe her. She could see the hurt in his eyes, as though she had somehow betrayed him, but slowly, eventually, he nodded and averted his gaze.

"So he's the one you're trying to cure?" asked Ron, pulling up a chair and taking a seat as he peered at the all parchment covering the dinner table, frowning as he tried (and failed) to make sense of all the notes. "What exactly is making him do that blood-coughing thing?"

"Why don't we talk after lunch? I'm cooking spaghetti," Hermione said lightly as Snape emerged from the hallway wearing that yellow penguin shirt. It probably wouldn't do to be discussing his personal issues behind his back _while he was in the next room_; she figured that if he wanted to talk about it, he would, and otherwise she would discreetly discuss it with her friends in a more remote location. However, Snape didn't say anything to them or even look at them and instead walked out of the house—he almost wandered away, insofar as Severus Snape could wander. Judging by his face, he had something he wanted to do and wasn't simply leaving out of bitterness or resentment.

Her friends seemed eager to help her prepare lunch, so she set them to chopping up tomatoes and onions while she started on the sauce. When she was reasonably convinced that Snape was not coming back immediately—she had quickly checked outside to see if he was skulking around the doorway—she said quietly, "Nagini's venom is doing that to him."

"Nagini's venom? But Mr. Weasley—" Harry said quickly, but Hermione shook her head.

"First thing I thought of too. But apparently Nagini injected more into him and it settled into his organs. He tried everything to get rid of it, but no luck. I thought maybe if we used clearbell, it might be a lot more potent."

"You think you've got a good chance, then?" said Harry, tipping his diced tomatoes into the pot on the stove. Hermione smiled and nodded.

"I'm positive the clearbell will do it. He thinks so too."

Harry seemed satisfied with that and smiled for the first time since Snape's sudden appearance. "You know, I can't get over the fact that he was making a joke," he said. "And that shirt…"

"I think Hell has frozen over and we just haven't realized it yet," Ron laughed, tossing his onions into the pot. "But I'm not complaining—he hasn't yelled at us or tried to hex us once."

"He's a sweet man deep down, I suppose," said Hermione, and Ron dropped his knife as Harry snorted and nearly cut his thumb instead of the tomato on the cutting board.

"Deep down where?" said Ron, grinning. "Are you two…?"

Hermione felt her face burn as he made a suggestive gesture with his hands.

"Absolutely not, Ronald!"

"You sure? You were practically groping his chest earlier, and I only noticed one bedroom…"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"We won't judge you for it, Hermione. Really, it's okay."

"Honestly, Ron!"

She looked to Harry for support and found that he had a hand pressed to his mouth as he silently quaked in laughter. Bristling, she glared at the pair of them in their silent mirth, before she reluctantly found herself laughing along, leaning heavily against the countertop with what she assumed must have been a ridiculous look on her face. It felt good to laugh with them; the very last bit of tension left over from earlier finally dissipated and it seemed even Harry was enjoying himself again.

Just as she finished clearing away her notes from the dining table to make room for plates and silverware, Snape seemed to wander back in—again, as much as a person like Severus Snape could wander—with a coconut in hand. He had handed the coconut to Ron and used his wand to duplicate it so that the poor Weasley ended up holding a teetering armful of coconuts. It also seemed that while he was out, he had transfigured his shirt from yellow to a lovely shade of light pink.

Hermione was convinced, at this point, that that man had resolved to do everything in his power to positively fuck with their minds.

As she was doling sauce onto plates of spaghetti noodles, Snape was busy magically cutting holes into the coconuts and making quite a big show of using magic to make the coconut juice twirl and undulate in the air—definitely not something Hermione had ever seen him do before. He really was pushing it as far as absurdity went, but he seemed to be having so much fun that she didn't have the heart to stop him and spare Harry and Ron the mental torture. The juice trick seemed to be something he picked up from a maid café during his time in Japan, which Harry and Ron were having some trouble understanding.

"What's a maid café, exactly?" Harry asked slowly, confusion stamped all over his face.

"It's exactly what it sounds like, Potter," said Snape. The juice was now spiraling in circles and he had a horrifically cheerful smile on his face. "There are young women dressed as maids. It is a café. They serve you coffee. I quite like the coffee."

"And they do…_this_, do they?" asked Ron, and it was clear from his face that his mind was having difficulty combining all the things he was seeing at the moment. When he caught sight of Hermione bringing plates over to the table, he launched himself from his chair in order to help, if only for a small respite from the madness.

Judging by the way Snape's eyes darted toward Ron and the way the corner of his mouth turned up a little more, he knew exactly what he was doing and was doing it on _purpose_. "All right, all right, you've made your point," Hermione said, gently nudging him toward the table.

"I'm offended that you believe I have a point to make," he said, frowning. But, after he saw that his torture victims had taken their seats already, he resigned himself to doing the same.

It was with profound relief that Hermione found her friends still somewhat coherent and able to eat.

It was also with profound relief that Hermione found Snape had decided to suspend his campaign to render her friends insane—he and Harry were actually having a calm, non-bizarre conversation about the things that had happened following the war. Most of it he already knew from McGonagall's visits, of course, but Harry and Ron did have insights into Ministry workings that neither McGonagall nor Hermione herself had—namely, the state of Auror training and magical law enforcement. Eventually, though, the conversation swung toward children and who had them. Snape seemed mildly interested, likely because he wouldn't be expected to protect or teach potions to the potential dunderheads, and showed a little more interest when they had mentioned Draco Malfoy's little Scorpius.

And then, of course:

"I named my son after you, Professor. His name is Albus Severus."

Silence.

The look on his face was incomprehensible, and Hermione feared he might do anything from bursting into laughter to cursing Harry out of existence, and she was fully prepared to protect her friend from it even if her body decided to tear itself apart from the magic.

He stared at Harry, dark eyes boring into green ones, before he said simply:

"That is an _atrocious_ name for a child, Potter."

"Wh-what?" Harry looked almost indignant.

"_Albus Severus?_ Are you mad, Potter? Why not something normal like Stephen? Or Jeffrey? But _Albus_ _Severus_?"

"I named him for you and Professor Dumbledore. Ginny and I thought it would be a good way to honor the both of you."

Another silence. Snape's face still inscrutable.

"There is no honor in my name, Potter."

"You—you don't really believe that, do you?" Harry said quietly, looking almost pained. "You're fooling yourself if you think that you don't deserve this small gesture of appreciation."

Snape glared at him, as though trying to spear him with his line of sight, before he slowly shut his eyes and massaged his temple with a hand.

"I hope you have a suitable nickname for the poor child, Potter."

Harry's face spread into a smile.

It was as though the discussion of Harry's unfortunately-named child had been some sort of figurative leech on their earlier conversations, because now that it was done and over with, Hermione felt that everyone was a little more relaxed. Indeed, Ron even asked Snape how to do the little trick with the juice, probably to show off to Lavender once he got home. If anyone from back home had looked in on the lively group of people crammed around the small dining table, they probably would have walked off in the opposite direction in search of a bottle of firewhiskey or a suitable therapist.

And it turned out that Snape had not forgotten his earlier crusade to completely destroy their minds.

"Tell me, Potter, Weasley," he said as he cut open more coconuts for them to drink from. "Have you ever heard of these places called 'soaplands'?"

_Oh, this can't be good,_ Hermione thought, declining the coconut that Snape tried to give her. The poor saps. They wouldn't know what hit them.

"No, what's a soapland?"

"Think of it like taking a bath, except…"

_Pffffftttbbblllll._

_

* * *

_

The moonlight filtered gently through the treetops as Hermione slowly walked back from the clearing in the forest, a content smile playing on her face. Her friends had been regretful that they had to return to London after enjoying such wonderful company—and weather—in Hawaii, though they did seem rather relieved to go after the Hermione's magnificent rant entitled "Don't Tell Anybody About Snape Not Even Ginny Or I Swear I Will Destroy Your Family Jewels." Ron had gone oddly and pleasantly pale at the mention of what she would do to said jewels, and had urged Harry to heed her words. Harry himself had been incredibly obliging and urged her to contact him should she need any more materials for her potion to cure Snape, and had mentioned it about five times more while they searched for the tree-branch portkey he had hidden in the foliage upon their arrival.

She peered up into the night sky and smiled at the sight of all the stars; living in a city meant that the stars were ever hidden behind the glow of the city lights, but here they twinkled cheerily in the sky. It filled her with a great sense of calm to be so far removed from civilization that simply seeing the stars was cause for amazement, and she couldn't help but think that this…_holiday_…was the best she'd had in, well, quite a long time—even if it was initially quite a painful and frustrating holiday. However the hell she got here, she was grateful that it had happened and even more grateful that one of her heroes was alive and kicking.

When she emerged from the forest, she caught sight of the white glow of a phoenix Patronus hovering on the shore next to a dark figure. _Nightmares already?_ Hermione thought worriedly. It was much too early for Snape's bedtime, so unless he had forced himself to drink some sort of sleeping potion in the thirty minutes that she was gone, he couldn't have been having any Patronus-prompting nightmares.

Snape was sitting in the sand by the time she reached him, a faraway look in his eyes as he stared into the dark horizon. She took a seat beside him, nestling herself into the sand when he did not protest. "Are you all right?" Hermione asked softly.

"Perfectly fine. Just…"

"Reminding yourself that it's over?"

He seemed to be slightly surprised at her words. "…Yes," came his eventual reply.

"Are you worried that your Patronus will change back? Is that why you always cast it?"

"I am." He sighed, directing his gaze up into the sky.

Hermione smiled and, without thinking, gently put a hand over his—it seemed like something very _right_ to do, something that he needed. He looked surprised and she could feel his fingers clench underneath hers, but didn't pull his hand away.

"I don't think you need to worry, Severus. It wouldn't have changed if you were still holding on to the past."

"But I can't be sure…"

She let out a quiet laugh and lightly pat his hand.

"_I'm_ sure of it, and I'm the insufferable know-it-all, aren't I?"

He smiled, and nodded once.

"Indeed, Hermione. Thank you."

* * *

_A/N: Wowio, that was a long one. I had a little trouble because I had to stop and think to make sure Harry and Ron weren't wildly out of character. I hope I did okay. And I think I've done a pretty good job proofing, but don't hesitate to let me know if I miss a word or something so I can go back to fix it. XD Also, Harry Potter Wikia site, you are my hero._

_Also, soaplands. Google it if you don't know what they are. It's a little R-rated sometimes, though. Be warned. And if you're wondering whether Snape ever partook in such activities...Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination. Someone write a fic about it. XD Then link me to it.  
_


	6. Chapter Six

**Flotsam**

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* * *

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**Chapter Six**

_Hermione,_

_Ron almost got tricked into taking Veritaserum at the Ministry when we got in for work yesterday.  
He only just realized what was going on and was able to divert them. We checked around and it  
seems that the Department suspects you of leaking Ministry secrets. It turns out that they've been  
tracking portkey usage in Hawaii, and they must have picked up on my clearbell purchase and  
visit to you. I'm not sure if they have asked for US assistance with their investigation. I'll let you  
know if I find out._

_I just thought you should know in case an Auror comes calling. I'm doing everything in my power  
to convince them otherwise, but there's a limit to my control when the Department of Mysteries  
is involved. _

_Snape shouldn't be exposed just because of us—please help him stay safe. I've enclosed a fake  
Galleon with a Protean Charm on it. Yours is the master coin. Use it to call me if there's an emergency  
(Ron has one too). Just like the DA days, remember?_

_Love,_

_Harry_

_P.S. The Memorial will be ready in a few weeks. We just got confirmation. Hope you can make it._

Numbness began creeping up through Hermione's fingers as she read through Harry's letter. The Ministry was suspicious of her, and they were suspicious enough to try getting Ron to take Veritaserum without prior consent. It was only a few days since their visit, and already the Ministry was taking action. There must be something about her research that was causing such a panic among them, something about portkeys that perhaps she hasn't realized yet. Her research involved the space that portkeys utilize when transporting people, so what about that space was getting the Department's knickers in such a twist?

She thought back, racking her mind to remember at her notes on portkeys. Near-instantaneous travel to any predefined location. Serious injury or even death if the portkey is released before arrival. Reports of people disappearing altogether if they release the portkey before arrival. Her unexpected arrival in Hawaii with a test portkey defined to travel only to another room in the Department of Mysteries and back.

Had her potion materials shielded her from the effects of prematurely releasing the portkey?

And if it did, what did it mean about the space the portkey uses?

Magic is, at its core, meant to condense multi-step processes into the least amount of steps possible. It applied to everything: curing colds, travelling, building your own chair, even taking lives. So many of these things could be done with just a simple flick of the wand and a short incantation.

So if she assumed that portkeys traveled in the shortest-possible straight line toward their defined destination, then there was no way that her test portkey would have made a quick detour in Hawaiii before going back to the Department. And what if she assumed the other extreme?

What if portkeys sent their passengers through all points in space before the destination is resolved?

And if they could control the time spent in that space, selecting where they would like to be dropped…

The implications of such an ability would be enormous.

It was all hypothetical until she could test it, of course, but it would explain why she had been able to somehow get past the Department's security wards in the first place—they had resisted her exit within the confines of the Department, but there was no way they could keep her confined if she had been in all points in space at once. And so, she had been forced through them, leaving her in the magic-less state that she had found herself in. So perhaps this is what the Department was so worried about—they thought she had mastered the portkey's in-between state and run off to the US with the knowledge of how it was done. With that sort of power over physical space, a portkey user could easily deposit themselves in locations that were heavily safeguarded by enchantments. Secrecy and security would have to be completely redefined to prevent such a thing—if it was even possible to prevent.

But there was still the question of why she showed up in Hawaii over anywhere else. The odds of her conveniently showing up on the little island that Severus Snape had been hiding himself on were astronomical and it couldn't have been due to chance. Not something like that.

So what was it?

Hermione sighed and crumpled up Harry's letter, setting it aside as she sat limp in her chair at the dining table, absently turning the fake Galleon over in her hand. She peered around the quiet house, dark apart from the lamp illuminating the dining table, and frowned. She shouldn't stay here anymore, not if the Ministry was going to go so far as to send an Auror to come collect her. Honolulu would be a good place to become visible in—Danny would be there, and there was a small magical community that she could probably fit right in with. Or she could pose as a tourist. The only real problem was how to get herself there.

What would happen if she took a portkey to Honolulu? Would her body hold up, or would she die along the way?

Perhaps she could conjure a small raft and manage the enchantments to keep it afloat long enough to sail to Oahu. But she wasn't a sailor—it'd be difficult for her to navigate the open seas even _with_ all her magic intact.

Side-along Apparition with Danny? It posed the same problem as the portkey, and it also required his assistance. If he was as good friends with Snape as she thought, she wouldn't be able to get away without the chance that he'd tell Snape.

A ferry? The island was too small for most tourists to be interested, so waiting for a boat might not work out so well.

Airplane? Planes seldom flew to the island. However, if she recalled correctly, a small seaplane would be arriving late in the morning like it did every week. Perhaps she could bribe the pilot into taking her to Honolulu.

She glanced at the clock ticking away on the wall across from her.

1:07 AM.

She sat there for a moment, her eyes darting about the dark house, before she sprang to her feet and whipped out her wand, sending all the parchment strewn on the table into a single, neatly-organized stack. With another flick of her wrist, she sent the stack of parchment and all her open potion books into a courier bag that Ron had left for her—its interior was enchanted with an Enlarging Charm. The dining table was completely bare now, save for her quill, inkwell, and the crumpled wad of parchment that was Harry's letter. She straightened out the parchment and tapped it once with her wand. Immediately it became flat and the entire content of Harry's letter was obscured with thick lines of black ink, and she turned it over as she grabbed her quill.

_Severus,_

_Harry warned that Aurors may be dispatched to collect me. I can't impose on you any longer—  
not if they're going to send Aurors around. I don't want to risk you getting found out._

_Thank you for everything. Truly._

_- Hermione_

Her eyes hovered over the message for a moment, unsure whether she had written too much or too little. There was no way to convey her sense of gratitude using mere words, but she didn't want to hang around long enough for him to find her out and convince her to stay. The only reason she had stayed was that she wasn't mobile, but now that she could move and use minor magic, she needn't burden him with her presence any longer. And though she was loath to leave him alone in his worsening condition, she could brew the clearbell potion from Honolulu and have Danny give it to him. Yes, it would work just fine that way.

Squaring her shoulders, she left the note on the table and hurried into Snape's bedroom to pack away her clothes, stuffing the fake Galleon into the knot of her sarong as she did so.

"Are you going somewhere?"

She froze in the middle of stuffing her clothing into the courier bag at the sound of Snape's voice and slowly, slowly turned around to find him watching her, casually leaning against the doorway with his arms folded over his chest. She hadn't even heard him approaching and wondered how long he had been standing there. "Y-yes, I am," Hermione said quietly. "Harry said that Aurors might come for me, and I don't want them to find you."

"Is that what that note on the table might be about?" he asked, peering around the corner and into the living room. He flicked his wand and caught the note as it went sailing toward him, scanning it quickly before giving her a pointed _are you mad?_ look. "For someone as intelligent as you, you continue coming to foolish conclusions," he said, looking slightly exasperated. "You do _not_ need to worry about me. And how were you expecting to get anywhere in your state?"

"I was…going to take a plane," said Hermione, nervously drumming her fingers on her thighs. "Thought I'd beg that man who comes in the seaplane every week to take me to Honolulu."

"I see," said Snape skeptically. "And if he refused? Were you planning on swimming there?"

"Look, I hate—I hate that I'm imposing on you like this," said Hermione, her voice strained as she struggled to hold back her tears. "You're just so…you seem so happy, and I don't want the Ministry to ruin it for you. _I_ don't want to ruin it for you."

He stood there for a moment, and then had the unmitigated gall to laugh. "Imposing?" he said, arching an eyebrow. "You're rather low-maintenance. You seem to be fine so long as I feed you every so often and leave you to your own devices."

What was she, a pet hamster or something?

"But—"

"I'd rather like to see the outcome of the clearbell potion first hand," he interrupted. "We can easily deal with whatever Ministry fools they send here. It will not be a problem, I assure you."

Hermione quickly wiped her tears on her sleeve as she dropped the courier bag. "Why are you okay with this?" she demanded. "Why aren't you angry at me or Harry?"

"I, for one, welcome the challenge of keeping those idiots away," said Snape, drawing himself up and smirking. "It will be a good way to keep certain…_skills_ up to snuff."

So he wanted use the Ministry Aurors for target practice, perhaps?

"Why don't you go to bed now? It's quite late," he said, incinerating her note with his wand before turning to leave. He paused for a moment, his back to her, to add, "Don't think that I dislike your company. You are not an inconvenience." And with that, he gently shut the door.

She stared blankly at the door, her fingers numb, before allowing her body to fold down onto the bed. Not an inconvenience? Was he merely being polite and doing the gentlemanly thing of caring for her (or indeed, feeding her every so often)? She had dropped in—literally—and now his life in seclusion was at risk, but he instead _welcomed_ the challenge and insisted she stay. It made her wonder if he was perhaps _bored_ with his life and wanted to spice it up a bit by toying with Ministry Aurors. Or perhaps…

_Perhaps he's just lonely._

_

* * *

_

"Do you think that it might be better to substitute the ravengrass with crushed bicorn horn?"

"It's true that bicorn horn collected in the right moon phase would be more potent, but for a situation like this, I think that ravengrass will be a much better stabilizer. Its effects will be much more subtle and less likely to kill me."

The pair had spent the entire morning planning out the procedure for the potion they had christened "Clearbell Potion" (with capital letters) for lack of a better name. After their exchange the previous night, Hermione was filled with a renewed sense of purpose; Snape was allowing her to stay—insisting even—and it was up to her to show that she deserved it. It seemed that Snape's tongue was much looser when it came to potions and Hermione found that she was enjoying herself quite a bit as they refined the procedure for brewing the potion. Intellectual conversations about potion theory were hard to come by outside of her research work at the Department of Mysteries, as it seemed her only friends willing to discuss theory in-depth were Neville Longbottom and, surprisingly, Harry himself. Neville, of course, was most versed in Herbology, while Harry's expertise was focused mainly around the Dark Arts and defending against them, so she was woefully alone with regards to potions. Or had been, anyway.

After a (very) late lunch of turkey sandwiches around three in the afternoon, Snape had brought out a small basin filled with a thick, deep orange paste and set it on the living room's coffee table. "Help me roll these," he said, taking a seat on the wicker couch and conjuring a large jar.

"What is it?" she asked, sitting herself down in the armchair across from him and watching curiously as he dug his hand into the basin.

"Pepperup potion," he said, pulling out a handful of paste. When she gave him a perplexed look, he smiled and laughed. "In convenient, chewable form, of course. Just roll it into little balls. Watch."

Hermione watched him silently as he rolled the paste into a long cylinder, then pinched off a small piece the size of a knut and deftly shaped it into a ball using only a single hand. She was impressed by the speed at which he effortlessly rolled the paste—his fingers moved both quickly and deliberately, and in no time at all, there were a dozen little balls of Pepperup potion sitting in the jar. His hands, curiously, smoked slightly as he worked and the smoking became more pronounced once he finished. "Even a first-year could do this. You should have no trouble," he said, taking another handful.

Gingerly, she dug her fingers into the Pepperup paste and found that her fingers began tingling. It wasn't related to her body's current issues with magic—it seemed to be an effect of the potion itself. She slowly pulled out a handful, just barely managing to suppress a grimace at its dung-like texture, and found that her hands began smoking after a few moments as the tingle grew more pronounced. "It's disinfecting your hand," said Snape, watching her in slight amusement as he continued rolling. "Don't let it sit too long or it will eat the skin away."

As though electrified by that lovely tidbit of information, she earnestly began rolling her handful. She rolled the paste between her hands to force it into a tubular shape, wrinkling her nose at it before pinching off a small piece at the end—it was even _shaped_ like dung now, and the warmness in her hands only exacerbated the similarity. Though Snape made it look so effortless, rolling the little balls proved to be quite difficult with only one hand, resulting in little deformed blobs of paste. Snape frowned at the sight of them, giving her a brief look before resuming his own rolling. Blushing with embarrassment, she re-rolled them with two hands into near-perfect spheres and resigned herself to doing it that way from then on.

"What's this for?" Hermione asked once she was in enough of a groove that she could talk and roll at the same time.

"It's an order for Danny. He's running low on Pepperup to distribute," Snape explained.

"Was it your idea to make them chewable?" she asked, smiling. "It's quite ingenious—almost like a Muggle pill." Snape smiled and nodded.

"Indeed. It's troublesome to carry jars of liquid, and it's lighter and easier to store this way. Danny's buyers seemed to be quite taken with the idea, so we've been doing like this ever since. However," he added almost resentfully, "there are only a few potions that I have been able to make in this form. Others tend to fail—sometimes catastrophically."

Hermione was rather surprised when he launched into a tale of misery about the time he tried to make an anti-allergy potion into a chewable solid; normally, he'd simply stop talking and she'd have to ask him to tell the story. He related to her about the horrific hives that spread over his body when the paste unexpectedly exploded as he was rolling it into balls, and how Danny had laughed uncontrollably at the sight of his bloated, itchy face and his sausage-like fingers. Apparently, he had to spend the next twelve hours in his bathtub soaking in liquid anti-allergy potion before the itchiness and swelling subsided. Hermione had some difficulty imagining the scene, as a bloated Snape and bathtub-soaking didn't mesh all that well in her mind.

It seemed like no time at all had passed when they finally finished rolling all the Pepperup paste, but two hours had already gone by. She didn't even notice that her hands were stinging until she was done rolling, and when she looked down on them, she was slightly horrified to find that they were red and raw as though she'd been slapping something rough over and over. And now that she was conscious of it, it _really_ started hurting. "Stay there," said Snape when he noticed her distress, getting up and disappearing into the hallway.

Upon his return, he sat himself down on the edge of the coffee table and opened a jar of light blue salve, extending his hand toward her. "Give me your hand."

Hermione was rather surprised at how gently he took her hand and how carefully he spread the blue paste over her palm and fingers. The stinging thankfully subsided as he rubbed the salve into her skin, her fingers twitching as new skin spread over the red patches. He did the same for her other hand, ever so gently rubbing salve into her skin until finally both hands were back to normal. She thought it curious at first that his hands were so gentle and precise, because she expected that his hands would be your average man-hands, but after a bit of thought, it made a lot of sense: the more difficult potions were often delicate and required a steady hand, ergo, a potions master like him should have steady and precise hands.

"Here, let me," she found herself saying, and she noticed that she was taking the little jar of salve from him. When did her body decide to rebel against her mind and act on its own? Snape's mystified face suggested that she might have said something mad like "hey, that panda in here is cool and groovy," but he nonetheless handed her the jar and silently held up his hands for her. With a smile, she silently returned the favor and carefully spread the salve over his calloused hands and fingertips.

"How's that?" she asked once the skin had regrown over Snape's hands.

"Acceptable," was all he said, nodding once and giving her a thin smile. There was a brief flash of something else on his face, though, and Hermione quite couldn't tell what it was. Embarrassment, perhaps? Was he disturbed by what she had done? She wouldn't blame him—she was a bit disturbed herself.

Luckily, the both of them were distracted by the sound of a loud _CRACK_ from the porch shortly before Danny's grinning face appeared in the window.

"Hey guys!" he said cheerily. He paused to survey the scene before him and arched an eyebrow. "Did I…interrupt something?"

"No, we just finished rolling Pepperup for you," said Snape, flicking his wand at the front door. There was an audible click as the door unlocked and swung open.

Danny ambled in, holding a stack of styrofoam containers in one hand and an overstuffed plastic bag in the other. A small ukulele was held precariously in the crook of his arm, and a worn guitar was slung over his back. "My mom wanted me to give this to you, Severus. Leftovers from a party," he said, carefully holding out the stack of foam containers. "She's been asking why you haven't visited."

"What did you tell her?" asked Snape, setting the containers on the coffee table and peering into them. A wonderful smell emanated from each one as they were opened, and Hermione was suddenly aware that she was quite hungry—or that the smell had _made_ her hungry.

"I just said you had a lady friend visiting and you were otherwise occupied," Danny said, grinning roguishly at Hermione. "I think she liked the idea. Said something about you finally having a girlfriend."

"Hermione isn't my girlfriend," Snape said, rolling his eyes. Hermione suppressed a laugh at the idea—she could hardly imagine Snape having a girlfriend.

"Hey, she's a girl and she's your friend. Close enough as far as my mom is concerned."

"Why are you still here blathering like an idiot?" Snape snapped. "Why the ukulele and guitar?"

Danny threw an arm around Hermione and pointed her toward the window. "Since you don't look busy, I figured we could have some s'mores on the beach. Brought my guitar so we can kumbayah all night around a fire," he said cheerily as Hermione fidgeted uncomfortably. "Do you have s'mores in England?"

"I can't say I've had it," she replied.

"Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let's go!"

"Wait, take the Pepperup home before you forget. And the potion for your mother," Snape said, disappearing into the hallway. He returned with a large bottle containing a swirling blue smoke and what must have been over a liter of potion.

Thankfully, Danny let go of her and gratefully took the bottle from Snape. "Thank you, Severus. I almost forgot that it's next week," he said quietly. Hermione watched curiously—she got the sense that Danny was actually being serious and sincere, which seemed quite uncharacteristic of the usual odd vibe she got from him. However, that quickly faded as he turned to pick up the jar of Pepperup balls on the table with a foolish grin on his face. "Be back real quick, guys!" he said as he strode out of the house and Disapparated away.

Hermione wondered what might be happening next week that his mother needed a potion. A potion that emitted a faint blue smoke.

No…surely not…

"Was that Wolfsbane Potion?"

Snape's face seemed to freeze for a moment, before he was able to compose it into a smirk. "It is. Quite perceptive of you."

"His mother…is a werewolf?"

"She is. I brew the potion for her every month," Snape explained, putting his hands into his pockets. "I suppose I became friends with Danny after he begged me to brew it for her. He was desperate to get some—he pestered me for a week straight before I finally agreed."

"How did he know that you knew how?"

"It turned out that he was not quite as ignorant about the Dark Lord's activities in Europe as most other Americans are. He knew about me, and that I had been Potions Master at Hogwarts."

Hermione drew in her breath sharply. "Did he blackmail you?" she said quietly, putting a hand over her mouth though there was nobody else in the room to hear. Snape gave a nonchalant laugh.

"No, it was the opposite, in fact. He helps make sure that nobody bothers me, and provides me suitable employment so I don't need to show myself in public unless I wish it."

Well, that explained a lot. She'd been wondering why Danny had been so amenable in their ploy to pull one over on the Ministry, especially because of the great (and morally objectionable) lengths they had gone through to make it completely and utterly convincing, and it was a wonder why Snape tolerated the man in the first place. Not that he was excessively annoying or anything; it was just that he didn't seem like the kind of person that Snape would have willingly struck up a friendship with. So it had started as a symbiotic relationship, with the both of them gaining something from the other, and now it seemed that they were quite good friends. Funny how the world worked.

When they heard Danny return, this time bearing a case of beer, Snape had quickly ushered him out of the house, muttering about how it always seemed so crowded when he was around. They ended up sitting around the large, crackling fire that Danny had conjured on the beach, Snape and Hermione eating the leftovers from earlier as he was breaking graham crackers and bars of chocolate apart. Hermione was eating what was apparently kalua pork and some sort of steamed fish, and she was exceptionally surprised by how delicious they were. And the spam musubi! She never thought that spam, the terrifying mystery meat that she never actually tried until she got to Hawaii, could ever _ever_ taste so wonderful. And these were just cold leftovers that she didn't bother warming up; the food must have been at least three times as good when it was fresh.

"Okay, so s'mores are easy. First, you gotta roast a marshmallow," said Danny, ripping open a package of huge marshmallows and conjuring a long stick, spearing a marshmallow with it. Hermione watched in fascination as he stuck the marshmallow into the flame and let it catch fire, before pulling it away and blowing it out. The marshmallow, which had been nice and smooth and white prior to its trip into the fire, was now charred and brown and looked wholly unappetizing. He sandwiched the marshmallow and a piece of chocolate between two slices of graham cracker and held it up proudly for Hermione to see. "See? That's all there is to it."

It still looked rather unappetizing as he bit into the little marshmallow-chocolate sandwich, with chocolate and marshmallow oozing everywhere. Nonetheless, she took the stick, now with a fresh marshmallow on it, when Danny offered it to her and cautiously put it in the fire. She was loath to let it catch fire, though, and pulled it out before it could even _think_ to burst into flame. "Just like this, right?" Hermione said, taking the graham crackers and chocolate and sandwiching them all. Danny nodded and gave her a thumbs-up.

It was messy and awkward and got hot chocolate and marshmallow all over her hands, but it was _good_.

By the time the sun was well below the horizon, both Hermione and Danny exhausted their desire to eat any more s'mores—Snape ate one out of courtesy when Hermione offered it to him, but he didn't look like he enjoyed it at all. His frown was enough that Danny began playing a cheerful tune on the ukulele, singing a song about roasting marshmallows with his _best buddy in the_ _wo-o-o-orld hey yeah_.

"You haven't had anything to drink yet and you're acting like a drunkard," said Snape, looking rather cross when Danny finished his song.

"Well, why don't we fix that?"

Apparently, Danny's idea of "fixing" it was to pass beer around and open a bottle of tequila.

And so, a few reluctant shots of tequila later, Hermione found herself happily bobbing along with one of Danny's improvised songs as he strummed away on the guitar. She hadn't expected that tequila would be so strong and she was just sober enough to feel embarrassed at herself, but all the kumbayah-ing that Danny was doing made her happy enough to let it slide this once. If Snape was affected at all by the tequila, she couldn't tell—he did look the slightest bit dazed and had an amused half-smile on his face the whole time Danny was singing somber love songs, but for the most part, he wasn't slurring or wobbling or anything.

"What are you playing at?" said Snape finally as Danny finished another song. "What's the occasion?"

"Hey man, we don't need a special reason," Danny laughed. His face was bright red, likely flushed by the alcohol, and it made him look rather comical as he waved a hand at Snape. "Are you drunk enough to hula yet?"

_Snape doing a hula dance? _

The very thought bulldozed straight through Hermione's alcohol-induced haze.

"I'd die of liver failure before I hula for you," Snape said irritably.

But it was too late—the seed was sown. Hermione _had_ to see him do it.

"You know how to—" she started.

"No."

"But it sounds bril—"

"Absolutely not."

"I won't laugh…"

"What part of 'no' do you find difficult to understand?"

Snape was giving her his best I-swear-to-god-if-I-was-still-your-teacher-I'd-give-you-detention-and-destroy-Gryffindor's-House-points look, but Hermione was not deterred in the least. "I understand if you're scared, Severus," Hermione said slowly, taking great care not to slur his name. "Here, I'll do it first—I'm a _Gryffindor_, after all."

Hermione didn't know how to hula any more than she knew how to do an Irish jig, of course, but she didn't let it discourage her. Whatever it was her body was doing—certainly nothing resembling a dance, Hawaiian or otherwise—Danny seemed to approve and leapt to his feet, striking up a tune on the ukulele and swaying in time with the music. But, she had chosen her words carefully and if her tequila-fueled calculations were correct, then any minute now…

"You look foolish. Try it this way."

It was cold in Hell that day, for Severus Snape was teaching Hermione Granger how to hula.

* * *

_A/N: I think I pushed the weirdness a little too far. Hula-Snape? D:_

_Also, my lunch today was Hawaiian bbq. Yum. And now I want to make s'mores. And have a bonfire. Eff.  
_

_For anyone who might be familiar with it, I imagined that when they were rolling the Pepperup, they were doing it the way you'd roll rice-cake balls for ginataan (a soupy Filipino dessert-ish dish). If you do a Google image search for ginataan balls, one of the pictures in the first few rows should be a bunch of white and purple balls._

_ A Very Small Prophet: Haha, right you are about the islands thing. I figured it was a given that Harry was using "islander" to refer to the Pacific Islands though. Unless people in the UK are frequently called islanders...In which case, cool! The more you know._

_Tequila is strong, gaiz. Don't drink and drive and whatever.  
_


	7. Chapter Seven

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Seven**

The first rays of the morning sun caressed Hermione awake.

It felt lovely, but she really was quite sleepy. She pulled her blanket closer and snuggled herself deeper in the sand.

Sand?

Hermione opened her bleary eyes and found that she was lying on the beach, wrapped in a plush blanket, as the sun was creeping up above the horizon. She sat up, grimacing at the stiffness of her joints, and surveyed the scene around her. Danny was curled up in the sand a few feet away, fast asleep and hugging his ukulele close. She was just about to wonder where Snape had wandered off to when she twisted herself around in an effort to stretch her back and found him lying right behind her, sprawled on the sand in a manner unbecoming of the dreaded former Hogwarts Potions Master. She smiled and allowed herself a few moments to watch him sleep—his facial expression was no longer precisely calculated, no walls carefully constructed to keep unwieldy emotions in.

He simply looked like a man.

Snape looked so peaceful that it was a bit difficult to resist the urge to poke his face, and she wondered if he'd wake up if she drew something on his skin with a marker. But, thinking better of it, she instead got to her feet and, after shaking the sand out of the blanket, draped it over his sleeping form. With a yawn, she rubbed her eyes as she shuffled over to where the water met the shore and wiggled her toes into the damp sand.

It was difficult to remember the last time she'd done anything like the previous night—just a simple night with friends—and it felt rather good. Well, it felt good at the time; right now, her joints were hurting a bit from all the alcohol and her mouth tasted disgusting. Between the three of them, they'd finished the entire bottle of tequila, which was a feat in itself since the bottle was huge relative to the number of people drinking from it. She didn't drink herself into unconsciousness—she was actually quite surprised that her body could hold it so well—but ended up drifting in and out of sleep after the…_interesting_…hula lesson given to her by her former potions professor. The last thing she remembered before falling asleep next to the fire was watching Danny try to teach Snape how to play the ukulele, which hadn't been going too well if she recalled and might have ended in the ukulele breaking a couple strings.

She meandered down the beach in an attempt to get the stiffness out of her legs, kicking at some (non-magical) seaweed that had washed up on the shore. It felt good to let some violence loose, until, of course, she stubbed her toe on something hard and let out a yelp, more out of surprise than out of pain. Kneeling down, she threw lengths of seaweed aside to find the offending object and froze in surprise when she found her black leather notebook wedged in the sand underneath the pile of seaweed. She hastily dug it out and found that it seemed to be in perfectly good shape—it looked a little battered, but thanks to her habit of putting the Impervius Charm on things she brings into her laboratory, it had no traces of water damage.

Her mouth spread into a smile as she walked back toward her sleeping friends—she hadn't expected her notebook to so fortuitously wash up on the shore, but it would help her determine what exactly she had been working with that allowed her to escape the Department's enchantments. She dropped down into the sand beside Snape, who seemed to have unconsciously taken a liking to the blanket and was curled up underneath it, and eagerly flipped through the notebook to the very last logs she made.

Where her latest notes should have been was only half of a torn page.

"What the hell?" she spluttered in shock, flipping through the pages as though the torn page was merely hiding somewhere else. This wasn't right at all. She knew for a fact that she was writing in the notebook the day the accident occurred, and it had been at her workstation the whole time. It was impossible for it to have been torn out on accident during its journey in the ocean, as the notebook's silver clover clasp was enchanted to keep the notebook from opening for anybody but her. The tear was too clean to have been an accident, but she couldn't think of anyone that could have done it. It couldn't have been Snape or Danny because the notebook wouldn't have opened for them, so the page must have been ripped out while it was open. That meant that only someone at the Department could have stolen the page…

Richard, perhaps?

The thought that Richard could have somehow stolen the page was ludicrous, but she quickly caught herself. Discarding ridiculous ideas was the last thing she should be doing, especially as a researcher. While it was _unlikely_ that Richard did such a thing, it wasn't impossible. She tried to think of when she last wrote in it that day, but her memory faded into a haze every time she tried to think of the short period between the time she wrote the notes and the time she appeared in the Pacific Ocean.

Realization suddenly slapped her in the face.

A memory charm. Someone had tampered with her memory of the event. Considering the fact that it was only a slight haze in her mind rather than a complete black area, she was confident that the period that had been wiped was a short one. Still, it was rather troubling. The whole accident may not have been one at all—what if someone had orchestrated the event, expecting to kill her or at the very least get her out of the picture? She wondered, then, about the authenticity of Richard's and Healer Phuong's visit. Granted, Richard did have the proper US clearance forms, but anybody who wanted them badly enough would be able to find a way to get them. Or, perhaps the visit itself was authentic, but was used as a cover for something a little more nefarious? Danny had come back, after all, to tell Snape that Richard and the healer had been sneaking around under orders from Marcus Matthews at the Department.

However, she couldn't think of any reasons that Matthews would want someone to steal her notes. It was just as plausible that Matthews was merely responding to her disappearance and took no part in the actual making-of, but it still left the question of who wanted her research badly enough to blank out her memory. It was customary within the Department of Mysteries for credit to be distributed throughout the relevant research teams, so it would be profoundly irritating if all her current woes were simply due to some foolish Unspeakable suddenly stricken with a desire for recognition.

"Something troubling you?"

Hermione gave a start and realized that she'd been so caught up trying to sort out the ideas in her head that she didn't notice Snape had woken or even that he was sitting up, watching her with a sort of mild interest.

A sudden thought came to mind.

"Severus, can Legilimency get around memory charms?"

He hesitated for a moment, though if he was surprised, his face didn't show it. "It may be possible. Why do you ask?"

"Someone used a memory charm on me to block out my memory of the accident. I'm convinced of it," said Hermione. She held up her notebook to the torn page. "My notebook washed up on the shore, and a page was torn out. Only I can open it, and the last time I had it open was right before the accident."

"I see." His face was incomprehensible for a moment. "You're suggesting that I use Legilimency on you, I suppose?"

"Indeed I am."

"Won't this violate some sort of Department secrecy regulation?"

"Just get on with it. I trust you."

Snape gave her a thin smile and locked eyes with her. He hadn't even started yet, but she felt paralyzed by his gaze.

"Very well. _Legilimens._"

A sharp pain manifested itself in her chest, but she forced herself to focus—or indeed, to not let her mind shut down as Snape sifted through the memories. She saw flashes of her time swimming in the ocean, flashes of the Ministry visit, of McGonagall's arrival, of the day she woke up to find a non-dead Snape, and it was all she could do to keep her mind together at the mounting pain in her chest. Finally, just as she was liable to collapse, a flash of herself floundering in the ocean, a brief glimpse of Richard and her workstation at the Department of Mysteries—

Suddenly, a haze.

"Hermione. Can you hear me?"

She blearily opened an eye and found herself lying on her back with the blanket folded underneath her head. "What happ—could you recover it?" she asked, trying to sit up and getting forced back down by a firm hand.

"Lie down. And no, I wasn't able to recover it," he added when she frowned. "You were right—someone wiped your memory."

She swore under her breath.

"It seems that at most, no more than a minute or so was removed," Snape continued. "Given time, I would probably be able to recover the memory. Your body, however, will not hold up nearly long enough."

"So they wiped just enough so that I wouldn't know who stole my notes," Hermione murmured. "But why…?"

"What is it exactly that you're studying?"

"I was studying…magical transportation. That's all I can say without a tracing spell activating," she said carefully. "I assume whoever took my notes was reasonably certain that I'd had some sort of breakthrough, because why bother otherwise?"

"I see."

"The simplest explanation for this is that somebody wanted to take credit for my work," Hermione continued, staring up into the sky. "The worst is that something Dark is going on."

"Considering the nature of the secrets held at the Department, I'm more inclined to suspect something of a darker nature," Snape said quietly. "There was something off about that Ministry visit. It seemed almost like a sham, especially if they sent that Thompson idiot to question you." However, contrary to a normal reaction to such revelations, he laughed and eased himself onto his back, a smile on his face.

"What's so funny?" Hermione demanded irritably.

"Listen to us, going on about Dark magic," he said, laughing again. "Considering the state you arrived here in, any notes they stole from you are likely incomplete and would probably hurt them rather than benefit them. Perhaps they already tried and are now languishing in Sub-Saharan Africa with some wildebeests."

The idea that the prat who stole her notes might be spending some quality time with a wildebeest was oddly comforting, she had to admit.

"I suppose so," she finally said, allowing herself to smile.

She sat up, swaying a bit as she did so, and stretched her arms into the air with a yawn. For a moment, she considered asking Harry to look into the matter, just to be sure nothing strange (or indeed, stranger) was going on, but he had no power in the Department of Mysteries and was already doing what he could regarding the Auror investigation. For now, she supposed she'd have to be content that there were people looking out for her, but it was rather frustrating that she couldn't do a thing about it herself because of her lovely magic issues. Hermione loved it in Hawaii, she really did, but between the lack of magic and the fact that she was stuck on a tiny island, she was beginning to feel rather stifled. Then again, if that incident didn't happen, she would still be working away in London and none the wiser to Snape's whereabouts.

The thought was upsetting.

"Hermione," said Snape casually, lazily turning his head to peer at her. "I noticed that you haven't been bothered about contacting any young men other than Potter. It was my understanding that you and Weasley were an item."

Hermione felt her face turn pink. "No, not anymore," she said, fidgeting nervously. What had brought this about? "We both decided it wasn't meant to be. He's with Lavender Brown now—I'm sure you remember her."

"Ah, Miss Brown. A match made in heaven," he said dryly, and Hermione noticed his nose seemed to wrinkle with distaste.

"She's a little less…dunderhead-ish now, though. After the war."

"Indeed. War changes people."

Hermione got the distinct feeling that he wasn't just referring to Lavender anymore.

"It was nice for a while, me and Ron," Hermione continued, feeling rather discomfited by his rather profound words. She laughed nervously. "We kissed during the battle, right after destroying the Horcrux in Hufflepuff's cup."

"Oh?" he said, a smirk creeping onto his face. "That's quite intriguing. I suppose love can bloom even on a battlefield, though to think Hermione Granger would be the type aroused by a battle…"

Hermione's knee-jerk reaction was to be offended and admonish him for his indecency, but as Snape started laughing, she was less offended and more amused; it _was_ quite ridiculous in hindsight, to have been so captivated that she kissed him in the middle of a battle where people were dying all around them. It was amusing, to tell the truth, and it deeply disturbed her that she found it amusing—that uncanny feeling of disconnect between her mind and body was creeping up on her again and she was struck with a sudden urge to roll over and bury herself in the sand.

"_Oh yes_," Hermione said sarcastically in an attempt to cope with the bizarre feeling overcoming her. "Battles just get me going…Can barely control myself in a good battle."

It would have made an odd sight, seeing the pair of them lying in the sand and laughing raucously up at the sky while Danny slept with his ukulele in his arms. Laughing was an interesting and wholly different way of coping with tragedy, Hermione realized, and she wondered how long it had taken Snape to transition from being a brooding, furious Death Eater to the sarcastic, laughing person she found lying next to her. Here she was, already becoming like him after only a few weeks, but he had done it alone—or at least, that was the impression she got. But she couldn't imagine that being around Professor McGonagall would have turned him into this person. Maybe Danny had something to do with it—perhaps he had to change his coping mechanisms in order to deal with Danny's rather…_forward_ personality.

As though to confirm her theory, Danny grunted and sleepily opened his eyes. "Whassofunny?" he murmured, blinking a few times as he slowly pulled himself upright. "Laughing and 's only…" He peered at his watch. "…'S only seven thirty."

"We're laughing at you," said Snape, sitting up and brushing sand from his back. "You look like an idiot hugging that ukulele."

"Dude, it's too early for verbal abuse," Danny groaned, putting his head in his hands.

"Not a morning person, I take it?" Hermione said, smiling. She had to stifle a laugh as Danny gave a huge yawn and sank back into the sand.

"Hate 'em." He fell silent for a moment, his eyelids drooping down as though he was falling back asleep, before he glanced at his watch again and sighed. "I'd better get going."

Danny slowly got to his feet as though suddenly afflicted by old age, and conjured a trash bag that hovered spinelessly in the air. With a wave of his wand, he sent all the trash from the previous night zooming into the bag, the bottles of beer clinking against each other as they flew in. A final flick had the bag tie itself in a knot, and he grabbed the bag with a flourish of his hand. "Well, I'll be off now," said Danny, shouldering his guitar. "It was good getting old stick-in-the-mud Severus to hang out. Thanks."

"You're welcome…?" Hermione said as Snape rolled his eyes. She was unsure as to why he would be thanking _them_ for the night, but Danny offered no explanation and simply grinned as he took a few steps to his left and Disapparated away. She turned to Snape with a curious look, but he merely shrugged and got to his feet.

"I'm going to make breakfast," he said, heading for the house. When he got to the door, he looked over his shoulder with a pointed look that clearly said "_are you coming or what?"_ before he slipped inside.

Not one to ignore him when he (very rarely) expected her to do something, Hermione scrambled to her feet and quickly shook the sand out of the blanket and off her notebook before going inside. She found him taking eggs and vegetables out of the refrigerator, and immediately she went to a drawer to get a knife; she'd taken to helping him cook meals so long as he didn't shoo her out of the kitchen, which he did a little more often than she liked. What she suspected is that he liked cooking due to its similarities with potion-brewing and couldn't bear anything less than (his idea of) perfection with his dishes. However, this time he simply nodded and handed her a green bell pepper before turning away to break eggs into a bowl.

"I thought we should start the Clearbell Potion today," Hermione said lightly as she washed her hands in the sink.

"Very well," he said, nodding once.

They continued in relative silence for a few minutes, until a thought came to mind. "You know, I've been wondering," said Hermione, looking up from her cutting board. "Why did you go to Japan in the first place? I'm sorry if I'm being presumptuous, but it doesn't seem like your kind of place."

Snape silently beat the eggs in the bowl without so much as looking at her, and Hermione feared that she might have ventured into private territory—but eventually he nodded and gave her a sidelong smirk. "No, I don't suppose it does. At the time, there were reports of kitsune attacks that their authorities were having trouble keeping under control, and I thought I'd try to get a few tails before they were killed."

Collecting kitsune tails?

_Bullshit_.

"Right, and I'm a fairy princess."

"I'm relieved that you have come to accept yourself for who you are, Your Majesty."

It was impossible to hold back a bark of laughter, and she nearly dropped her knife in the process. She should've known that he wouldn't give her a straight answer. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business," Hermione said once she regained her grip on her knife. It really wasn't, she supposed, but it didn't stop her from being curious.

"I will tell you that it did involve kitsune, at least initially," said Snape, turning back to the bowl of now finely beaten eggs. "The other details are unimportant."

Though it wasn't quite the answer she was hoping for, it was good enough. She expected—and _hoped_—that he might someday let her in on whatever secret he was keeping, but for now, she was glad that he hadn't gotten upset. Not that he really got _upset_, per se—the wrath that was often unleashed upon unsuspecting students during their school days was nowhere to be found these days—but he usually kicked his sarcasm into overdrive when faced with something he'd rather not discuss. She was just grateful that she wouldn't have to parry any verbal jabs with the fairy princess fodder that she just gave him. Unfortunately, now she was even _more_ curious as to what had possessed him to go to Japan; going there to collect kitsune tails seemed like a weak excuse, as they could more easily (and legally) be ordered from licensed hunters.

"Hermione, how are you feeling?" Snape asked as he tipped the beaten eggs into the frying pan on the stove. She raised an eyebrow at him, slightly perplexed.

"I feel fine, but why do you ask?"

"You're recovering quite nicely, then," he said over the sizzle of the eggs. "Danny and I put some general security wards on the area, and it seems you haven't felt them at all."

Her eyes widened in slight surprise and she felt a wave of mingled relief and glee wash over her. "Really? That's wonderful!" she exclaimed, her mouth spreading into a grin. It couldn't be much longer until she'd be back to doing the advanced magic she missed so much.

"We put anti-Disapparition and anti-Apparition jinxes around the area, except for the small space that Danny Disapparated from," Snape explained, flipping the enormous omelette over with a deft flick of his spatula. "I pushed it a bit and added a basic intruder charm, but we didn't want to risk making the area Unplottable in case it was too powerful for you to handle." Her smile must have been either amusing or contagious, because he stared at her for a moment before smiling himself.

"Thank you!" she said giddily, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Delight gurgled up from the pit of her stomach, and it was all she could do to keep from acting on her sudden desire to hug him.

"Please," he said, giving a snort and shaking his head. "We had nothing to do with your recovery—we only put up wards. No need to thank me for that."

"Still, though—I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me."

And she meant it, truly. All he did was give an indifferent snort in reply, but from the thin smile on his face as he busied himself with the omelette, Hermione knew that he understood—at least a little bit.

* * *

One breakfast and shower later, Hermione was sitting outside in the sand, mentally mapping out the procedure for the Clearbell Potion to make sure she had it absolutely right. It would take two weeks to brew and was straightforward enough with the exception of the one portion involving clearbell. Due to the clearbell's highly volatile nature, there was little room for error in that particular part of the procedure and they had to get it exactly right, or they'd waste the little clearbell that Harry had managed to get for her. Not to mention the fact the slightest mistake could cause another dangerous reaction like the one that landed her in Hawaii in the first place.

She dug a little basin in the sand and practiced the quick stirring movements required by the potion, using shreds of seaweed as a stand-in for the slices of clearbell roots. It wasn't long until Snape joined her outside, hair damp from his own shower, and squatted down to watch her practice the movements, making small suggestions every so often. It soon became clear that one person would have difficulty stirring while adding clearbell at the precise intervals required, so she found herself practicing the stirring while Snape took over the task of adding the clearbell. It was difficult enough that Snape had to fetch a watch and quietly count the time to synchronize the stirring and adding of clearbell, his voice keeping a steady mantra-like rhythm for her to follow. Counting the time worked so well that Hermione made a mental note to try it herself once she got back to work—preferably with a lab partner that _wasn't_ Richard.

"That's it, then," Hermione said finally as they both sat back in the sand, satisfied with the little practice session. "I think we've got it. It's easy with two people."

"Indeed. I think we—"

But whatever it was that Snape was thinking was immediately forgotten when they heard a loud _whoosh_ from high in the air above them and the subsequent wail of the intruder charm. Hermione scrambled to her feet and instinctively whipped out her wand as she cast her eyes up into the sky, her blood running cold at the sight of four wizards descending upon them, their robes fluttering wildly in their descent. Snape stepped in front of her, pushing her back protectively as they landed lightly on the sand with some sort of cushioning charm. Two of the wizards wore official Auror robes, but the remaining two appeared to be from the Hit Wizard department at the Ministry.

Two Aurors and two Hit Wizards? What did they think she was, a mass murderer?

One of the Aurors stepped forward, his wand pointed directly at her face.

"Unspeakable Hermione Granger, you are under arrest."

* * *

_A/N: Snuck a teeny reference to a video game in there. Anyone got it?_

_So when I started this thing off, the initial premise was only: "Severus Snape is on a beach." Then I decided, hey, let's try to make a story that has no fighting and science and whatever since I'm always writing about fighting and science and whatever._

_Failboat._

_Anywho, thanks for the reviews and stuff. They help me stay motivated when I get stuck. :D  
_


	8. Chapter Eight

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Eight**

"Unspeakable Hermione Granger, you are under arrest."

Hermione bristled at the Auror's words and pushed past Snape's arm, brandishing her wand. "On what charges?" she demanded.

The smirk that spread across the Auror's face was not very encouraging at all. "We _were_ going to arrest you for leaking Ministry secrets to the Americans, but I think I've just thought of something _much_ better," he said, his voice irritatingly and incredibly self-satisfied. Hermione recognized his haughty voice and vaguely recognized his face: this Auror was Folgian Sinclair, a heretofore unremarkable yet arrogant man that joined the Auror Office a few years after the requirements were relaxed. Ron had ranted for days about the man, but she hadn't yet had the pleasure of experiencing his personality up-close and personal.

Until today, of course.

"What are you talking about? I've done nothing of the sort!"

Sinclair ignored her and instead slowly turned his wand toward Snape, letting out a smug chuckle. "Well, well, to think that Severus Snape is actually _alive_," he said in a light sing-song manner. "That makes it quite convenient for us, if I do say so myself."

"What are you blathering on about?" Snape snapped, scowling at him. Sinclair had the audacity to waggle this finger at Snape, giving the both of them a condescending smile.

"Imagine this headline in the _Prophet_ tomorrow morning: _'Hermione Granger Arrested For Leaking Ministry Secrets_.' Needs more pizzazz, don't you agree?" said Sinclair, the smugness practically dripping from his voice. "I think I prefer this one: '_Hermione Granger Caught Conspiring Against Ministry With Death Eater!_' That'll really make their blood boil, don't you think?"

"Why you—! Why are you doing this?" Hermione demanded, stumbling over her words as she clenched her fists in rage. Whoever the bloody hell this man thought he was, she wanted to go over and pummel the smug right out of him.

"That's not really for you to know, Miss Granger," Sinclair said, tutting at her patronizingly. "Though I'll tell you this: Richard was supposed to have made your death look like an accident. However, we've since found a way to salvage the situation for the better."

"_What?_" She couldn't believe it. Richard had meant to kill her? Then what was all that apologizing about during his visit and in her fragmented memory of the accident?

_Why do they want me dead?_

"We had to Confund him pretty good, though, the poor bloke," he continued, shaking his head in mock pity. "Couldn't use the Imperius Curse because of the new security wards the Department developed. But no matter, because you'll be coming with us now, Miss Granger."

So they had Confunded Richard into thinking he needed to kill her?

"Who do you answer to? Harry would never have authorized this," Hermione snapped angrily.

"You're a sharp one, Miss Granger. Indeed, Potter never authorized this, but it's really none of your business. Now, we'll _all _be popping off to the Ministry, whether you come quietly or not. That means you too, Snape."

"Is that so?" said Snape coldly, narrowing his eyes.

Almost as though they'd actually discussed some sort of epic battle plan, Hermione stepped to her left as Snape stepped in the opposite direction in almost perfect synchronicity, Hermione crying "_Petrificus totalus!_" at Sinclair as Snape wordlessly sent a Stunner toward the remaining Auror behind Sinclair. The Auror collapsed immediately, but before Sinclair even had time to tip backwards onto the sand, the Hit Wizards sprang into action, one immediately countering the spell on Sinclair while the other fired off a pair of Stunners toward them. Hermione ducked and rolled in the sand, the red jet passing closely overhead, as Snape leapt aside and quickly swung his wand in a wide arc, sending sand flying into the Hit Wizards and toppling them over.

"_Duro!_"

Ignoring the searing pain in her chest, Hermione jabbed her wand at the sand that was pushing the Hit Wizards back, the causing the sand to immediately solidify into stone and trap them as they vainly attempted to squirm free. Hermione narrowly dodged a Stunner from Sinclair as she struggled to free Harry's Galleon from her sarong's knot, only to drop it as she stumbled in the sand.

Abruptly, a jet of green light shot by her head, and both she and Snape froze in horror.

Neither of them dared to move.

"I see we understand each other now," said Sinclair smoothly before freeing the Hit Wizards from their stone prison. He turned his gaze toward Snape, smirking. "Looks like I'll have to soften you two up before we can go back. _Crucio!_"

Snape's scream pierced right through Hermione's heart as he contorted in pain before falling to the ground and writhing in the sand. "Stop, stop! _Please!_" Hermione begged, scrambling toward Snape. Sinclair looked triumphant as he broke the curse, and Snape's screams turned into violent coughs as his blood sprayed onto the sand. Hermione put a protective hand on him and brandished her wand at Sinclair.

"How dare you? To use these curses…You are anAuror!_ Have you no shame?_" she snarled, sparks flying out of the tip of her wand as Snape lay gasping in the sand.

"Watch your tongue, Miss Granger. Though you're more useful alive, I have no qualms about killing you," Sinclair said, giving her a warning look. "I—"

Sinclair stopped when Danny appeared with a _CRACK_ a few feet away from Hermione and Snape—he had an idiotic grin on his face that quickly faded once he processed what it was he had the misfortune of Apparating into.

"What the—? What's going on here? Who are you?" he demanded, scowling and pointing his wand at Sinclair.

"Folgian Sinclair, Auror for the British Ministry of Magic," said Sinclair, indicating the Auror emblem on his robe. "I am simply arresting two criminals who escaped from us. Lower your wand."

"Criminals? What are the charges?" Danny said, defiantly keeping his wand up.

"_Lower your wand_," Sinclair repeated, turning his wand on Danny. "You have no reason to get involved."

Hermione watched, mystified, as Danny pulled a badge out of his pocket and brandished it at Sinclair and his cronies. "I am Daisuke Takahashi of the US Magical Bureau of Investigations. I have every reason to get involved," said Danny, tightening his grip on his wand and stuffing the badge back into his pocket. "So I'll ask you again: _what are the charges?_"

It was clear that Sinclair had not prepared enough smugness to deal with Danny's unexpected arrival, for he was temporarily disoriented and stumbled over his words before managing to regain his composure. "So you're with the MBI, are you? Do you realize that you are harboring the Death Eater Severus Snape and the traitor Hermione Granger?" Sinclair said airily, still managing to look smug as his face grew ever paler.

"Severus Snape? Severus Snape is dead," Danny said in an uncharacteristically scathing tone that shocked Hermione. "This man here is registered under the Department of Magical Affairs as a Mr. Severus Prince. Besides, didn't your Harry Potter clear Mr. Snape of all crimes?"

"A mere technicality. Snape's name wouldn't have cleared so easily were he present at the proceedings—it's easy to forgive a dead man," Sinclair retorted. "In any case, I'll be taking Mr. _Prince_ back with me to Britain to be properly tried for his crimes."

"Crimes that have been absolved due to his part in winning that little war you had over there?" Danny asked, arching an eyebrow. "Mr. Prince here has the right to asylum in the United States and is protected against whatever bias you have against the fact he happened to be a Death Eater…whose name was _cleared, _by the way." He put a rather nasty emphasis on the word, and Sinclair's eye visibly twitched at the sound of it.

It was clear now that Sinclair was flustered, and Hermione could almost hear the cogs grinding away in his head as he struggled to think of a way to worm out of the situation. The two Hit Wizards behind him looked anxious, wondering, perhaps, if their leader really knew what the hell he was doing. "W-well, I still need to take Hermione Granger back. She was found to be—to be leaking state secrets," Sinclair sputtered. Danny looked quite unimpressed and gave him a skeptical look.

"Show me the arrest warrant."

"Arrest warrant?"

"Are you kidding me?" Danny said, incredulous. "You show up here talking about arresting these people and _you don't even have a warrant?_ Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I am an _Auror_ for the Ministry of Magic! Or did you not understand that the first time around?"

Danny narrowed his eyes at Sinclair, his grip visibly tightening on his wand. "Guess what, asshole? Does this look like England to you? You're out of your jurisdiction," he said heatedly. "Get out of here before I _make_ you."

It was at that time that Hermione's instincts took control—she watched, breath bated and eyes flitting between the motionless Sinclair and Danny, before throwing up a Shield Charm around herself and Snape in the split second that all hell broke loose. Sand exploded everywhere as everyone sprang into action, Stunners rebounding off the Shield Charm as both Snape and Hermione scrambled to their feet. Despite the stabbing pain in her chest, she managed to get one of the Hit Wizards with the _Tarantallegra_ Jinx just as he tried to revive the Stunned Auror, while Snape forced Sinclair and the other Hit Wizard back with a blazing whip of fire.

Sinclair, however, was no joke. He managed to parry Snape's fire whip—though his robes were badly burned—and deflected a hex from Danny, only to shoot a jet of green light toward him. Hermione felt her heart stop in her chest when it nearly connected with Danny, but he just managed to dodge it, the jet passing over his shoulder and exploding upon contact with a palm tree. Palm fronds scattered into the air as half the tree was blown to pieces. Twisting himself upright as he stumbled, Danny pointed his wand at the palm fronds and they immediately snapped into solids, and with a wave of his wand, the blade-like fronds sped wildly toward Sinclair and the Hit Wizards.

Hermione was not a malicious person by nature, but something snapped inside her when she saw one of the Hit Wizards fire off another Killing Curse at Danny while his wand was pointed in the air. As Danny frantically leapt aside once more, Hermione jabbed her wand at offending Hit Wizard and, without so much as a second thought about the oncoming pain, yelled, "_Levicorpus!_"

He let out a yelp of shock as he was hoisted up into the air by an ankle—straight into the path of the speeding palm fronds. She saw Snape give her a quick glance over his shoulder as he deflected a hex before she collapsed onto the sand, clutching at her chest. She begged her body to hold up a little longer, forcing herself into a crouch and valiantly trying to ignore the pain now permeating her entire body. The battle was beginning to look bad; though Snape and Danny were exceptional duelers, they were fighting two-on-three without her (but it promptly became two-on-two when the pincushion of a Hit Wizard dangling in the air passed out) and their opponents were not shy about using the worst Unforgivable Curse.

In a stroke of sheer and utter luck, she caught the glint of the fake Galleon in the sand a few feet away, and she immediately leapt for it as she heard Snape's strangled yell when he got a Stinging Hex straight in the face. Her fingers trembled as she struggled to grasp the Galleon, tapping it with her wand and changing the serial numbers along the edge to "HELP." As soon as the numbers changed, she tossed it aside and mustered up enough strength to shoot a weak Impediment Jinx at Sinclair, who was impeded just long enough for Snape's _sectumsempra_ to cut a series of deep gashes in his wand arm. He staggered sideways, clutching his arm as the remaining Hit Wizard was blown back by Danny's _expulso_, and fired off one last Stunning Spell before collapsing to the ground.

Hermione watched, wide-eyed and unable to move, as the Stunner came straight for her.

The last thing she saw was the blurry image of Harry and Ron dropping from the sky before she exploded into a world of pain.

* * *

_Pain._

_Can't move._

_It hurts._

_If death is coming, it can't come fast enough._

_

* * *

_

_Hermione quickly scrawled the last of her notes into her notebook and put her quill down with a smile. She was finally making progress with her portkey research—after several fruitless attempts, she'd been ready to give up and tell her superiors that it couldn't be done with a potion, but finally…_finally_…she had some semblance of progress. Exhaling in order to relax herself before beginning the procedure that she was sure would work, she sat back in her stool and looked over the ingredients she had at her workstation as she rolled up her sleeves. She stifled a laugh at how many volatile materials she had sitting in one place—it was almost surreal that she was even handling them, considering how dangerous and how expensive all the materials were. But, being one of the best researchers at the Department of Mysteries had its perks, because obtaining clearance for the items was almost as easy as walking up to the apothecary counter and signing a simple release form._

_She waved her wand at the laboratory door behind her, and it locked with an audible click. With the click, the cauldron image on the other side of the door changed from green to red to signal that an experiment was currently in progress. Squaring her shoulders and pushing her rolled sleeves above her elbows, she picked up a pocket watch and the slivers of Verarboris bark, carefully dropping them into the distilled water she had boiling in her cauldron. When the distilled water clouded over before turning a translucent blue, she peered at her watch and watched the seconds tick away. When seven minutes had passed—seven minutes that she spent as unmoving as a statue—Hermione picked up the dish of shredded deep-sea salamander skin and carefully sprinkled the flakes into cauldron in a counter-clockwise manner. The potion began emitting puffs of violet smoke as the salamander skin was added, and she cautiously took a glass stirrer and stirred counter-clockwise seven times._

_When she removed the stirrer, it stopped emitting the smoke and stopped boiling completely. Ever so gently she set the stirrer down and picked up her wand instead. She looked to the empty soda can at her workstation, tapping it with her wand and muttering, "_Portus_." The can trembled in its place and glowed a light blue before settling down, looking like very much like an unassuming soda can. She'd gotten quite adept at making portkeys in the course of her latest research project and could define destinations within a foot or so of the precise location. This one, however, would only go to an empty chamber down the hall._

_With great care, she picked up a small clearbell root and her silver knife, holding the root over the cauldron as she carefully sliced off a thin strip. As soon as the slice left the root, it became clear and glass-like before dropping into the potion below. She waited a few seconds before steeling herself to cut another piece—the root had sent uncomfortable tingles through her fingers and it had taken the utmost concentration to keep her hand from twitching erratically._

_Hermione nearly sliced her finger off when she heard the door to the lab open. "I hope this is an emergency, because I'm in the middle of something!" she said irately without turning away from her potion._

_When she saw the silhouette of a person walk up beside her from the corner of her eye, she stopped in the middle of slicing the root and turned to glare at whoever it was that dared to breach laboratory protocol. "Excuse me, Richard, but what do you think you're doing?" she asked, frowning when she found her colleague leaning over her notebook and reading her most recent notes._

_Almost as though he only just realized she was there, Richard jumped and pointed his wand at her, his hand trembling. _

"_What's this about? Put your wand down," said Hermione in confusion._

"_I—I have to—I know what you've done…" he said, his voice strained. Hermione took a step back in apprehension; he had dark lines under his eyes and looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. _

"_What's wrong, Richard?" she asked, nervously tightening her grip on her knife._

"Av…avada ke…" _he whispered. Hermione's eyes widened in horror and she froze._

"_Richard, stop. Let's—let's talk about it, all right?"_

_He fell silent, hands quaking. Suddenly, without warning, he turned away, his face contorted in pain. "No, I shouldn't kill you—it's not right…!" he said, tears in his eyes. _

"_Richard, what do you think you're—ARRGH!" Irritation washed over her when the slice of clearbell she had been in the middle of cutting turned black and peeled itself off the root, falling into the potion. The potion was worthless now, tainted with spoiled clearbell. She would have to start over (again)._

"_Hermione! Oh gods, oh gods, what to do…"_

_Before Hermione could put the clearbell and knife down to figure out what the bloody hell was Richard's problem today, he tore out the very last page of notes from her notebook and slammed it shut. It took her a moment to realize what he had just done, and she clenched her fist around the clearbell in rage, brandishing the knife at him and hoping it would scare him enough that he'd give the page back. But before she could get a word in edgewise, he raised his wand and took a deep breath._

"Obliviate!"

A bright flash.

_Hermione staggered back as her workstation exploded with a flash of light—the remainder of her hazardous materials had reacted badly due to the proximity of the Memory Charm, blowing bits of her workstation into the air. She felt the soda can smack her right in the face—_

Swirling, undulating lights.

"_Oh, hell," Hermione groaned to herself as the lights swirled nauseatingly around her. The distinct feeling of being hooked by a portkey settled right behind her navel. But the swirling seemed to last a little longer than was normal for portkeys, and she felt as though invisible walls were closing in around her. It became uncomfortable—like she was being squeezed into a tiny ball—so she stuck her hand out to push whatever it was away. It seemed almost malleable when she pushed, but her touch did not stop the feeling of being squeezed. She began to panic and, gathering what strength she could, shoved as hard as she could. The invisible wall seemed to shatter to pieces, and suddenly the swirling grew faster and faster. When she stared into it, she felt her mind beginning to twist into knots when she realized that she seemed to be seeing millions of places all at once—the understanding of the _concept_ of each and every of those million places flitted through her consciousness, like she was seeing and understanding each frame of a movie in a million different threads in her mind_.

_She couldn't take it. Her mind couldn't handle it. It was too much._

_It was too much! _

Nausea. Pain.

_Despite all the swirling and all the undulating and all the images assaulting her mind and tearing it apart, her own thoughts rang out clear as day. _

"_My potions have never failed before—not like this. What a disaster…What would Professor Snape say if he saw me like this?"_

_Suddenly, there was a jerking feeling behind her navel. She felt as though she was speeding away from there, wherever there was._

Water. Water everywhere. Coughing, sputtering. Drowning?

Desperation.

Relief.

* * *

_A/N: I can't write a story without some sort of fighting to save my life. Someday I will and hopefully not in a situation in which I have to do it to save my life. Today is not that day._

_To SrMacrina: Saimin! I'm going to try it when I go to Hawaii in two weeks for my cousin's wedding. : D I haven't been there since I was 10, so I can't remember most of the food that I ate. : (  
_

_Thanks again to the reviewers! I read all of them even if you don't get any sort of reply (if you were expecting one).  
_


	9. Chapter Nine

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Nine**

"_Dear Merlin, Severus…what on Earth were you three doing…?"_

"_Will she be all right, Poppy?"_

"_It's hard to say, I'm afraid."_

"_Is there anything I can do?"_

Silence.

"_It might do her well to be looked at by a Muggle healer."_

"_I can arrange for that."_

"_You know, you don't look so well either, Severus. Would you like me to take a look?"_

"_No, I'm fine, thank you."_

_

* * *

_

"_How is she, Severus?"_

"_Still hasn't woken…What of the Aurors?"_

"_Transferred to a facility in San Diego. Harry's been trying to hold off the British Ministry long enough for the MBI to interrogate them without their interference. They'll hand them over to Harry once they're done."_

"_I see."_

"_Harry and Ron are going to watch the interrogation, though. I hear they're going to use Veritaserum."_

"_It may not be enough."_

"_Yeah, well, I know there's an MBI Legilimens that works in San Diego. Met the girl once—she's pretty good. She'll bust up their minds if the Veritaserum doesn't work."_

"_I see."_

_

* * *

_

"_Are you all right, Professor?"_

"_I'm fine, Potter. Any news?"_

"_They allowed me to watch the interrogation and we got a few leads. I set a small team to investigate back home."_

"_Who ordered Sinclair to bring Hermione back?"_

"_Rene Mortin. He's a member of the Wizengamot. Or was, anyway. He's since disappeared—my team is trying to find him."_

"_And the Ministry?"_

"_I'm trying to keep it hush-hush while I try to get to the bottom of this. It's hard to trust anyone at the Ministry right now…Seems I can't even trust my own Aurors."_

"_You're not such a dunderhead after all, Potter."_

"_Thanks…I think."_

_

* * *

_

"_Danny...what are you doing here?"_

"_Hey man, don't give me that look. I'm just checking on you."_

"_I'm fine."_

"_Yeah? You sure don't look it. When was the last time you ate anything?"_

"_I said I'm fine."_

"_She'll wake up soon, buddy."_

Silence.

"_Come on, let's eat—I brought dinner. Sitting here moping won't make her better."_

"_I'm not moping."_

"_Says you. Can you hear me, Hermione? Wake up soon so Severus here will stop moping around!"_

_

* * *

_

Through the dark haze came words that kept her mind from dissolving—words of newspapers, potions journals, novels.

The deep, reassuring voice kept her tethered.

* * *

Heavy eyelids fluttered open to a room illuminated by the dim glow of moonlight, then fell shut again. The first thought that drifted through Hermione's torpid mind was _dear Merlin everything hurts_, and the following thought was _dear Merlin, not again_. It took her a few moments—or minutes, or hours, or whatever it was—to pull her consciousness together enough that the little railcars in her mind linked together to make sluggish little trains of thought. How long had she been lying here? The faint whispers of overheard conversations and vague reading sessions lingered in her mind, but nothing was clear and she had no sense of time. For all she knew, she could have been lying there for months. Her body certainly hurt enough that it wouldn't surprise her if that was the case.

As her trains of thought began running more coherently, she realized that the Memory Charm that Richard used on her had broken: she could remember everything that conspired on the day of the accident. She remembered how Richard had looked distinctly unwell, likely due to whatever Confunding that Sinclair did to him, and how _he_ was the thief that took her notes and how _he_ caused the chain reaction that landed her in Hawaii. Well, no. Perhaps that was unfair. He caused the chain reaction, but it was clear in her mind that _she_ had chosen to go to Hawaii. Or rather, she had thought about Professor Snape and the portkey had taken her to him. It was almost funny how she had been floating in portkey limbo, and the first thing she had thought of was that her potion had failed and what her professor might have thought of her. Not her parents, not her friends, but a man who was dead to her at the time.

If she didn't despise Divination, she might have thought it was fate.

As frustrating as her situation was (considering all the physical pain, the lack of magic, and the fact that people were trying to kill her), Hermione was glad that she ended up where she did. It gave her the opportunity to do something for him, to cure him of Nagini's destructive venom, and she couldn't think of anybody more deserving than he. She let out a sigh and turned to her side where she expected—hoped—he would be, and felt her heart sink.

Severus Snape was fast asleep in the armchair beside the bed.

That in itself was not a problem; in fact, she was quite happy and reassured to see that he was there. What bothered her was how pale he looked—the moonlight made him look positively ghostly, and he slumped forward in his seat, his entire body trembling as he drew in slow, rattling breaths. And what troubled Hermione even more were the dark, discolored lines creeping out of his neckline and up onto his face, like the roots of a poisonous plant threatening to strangle him. She could even see some discolored veins spreading out from under his sleeve and over his left bicep.

Immediately she thought of his screams as Sinclair tortured him with the Cruciatus Curse, inwardly cringing at the memory of him writhing in the sand. Had it exacerbated the symptoms of his illness? He had started coughing up blood then, so it stood to reason that his distressing condition was a direct result of that. She saw an empty bottle on the nightstand and the dark flecks on his shirt and shorts, and wondered if the potion he took to mitigate the damage from the venom was even effective anymore.

Nagini's was not normal snake venom, indeed.

She couldn't help but feel pity for Snape—no, for _Severus_, because dammit, unless she referred to him like that in her mind, it would always be weird speaking his name. As if it wasn't enough that _Severus's_ organs were disintegrating inside him, somehow he got roped into some ill-conceived plot to kill her or discredit her (or indeed, both at once) and now looked and sounded like he was teetering on the precipice of death. It was only out of sheer luck that Danny showed up to help—if it hadn't been for him, she might not have had the chance to call for help with Harry's Galleon, or worse, she and Severus might have ended up dead.

The almost surreal silence was shattered when he suddenly coughed, startling Hermione so badly that her entire body twitched and throbbed in pain. She couldn't stop the groan that left her throat and clenched her eyes shut as she waited for the pain to subside.

"Hermione?"

It took her a few moments to get her eyelids to cooperate and open again, and when she did, she found Severus watching her with a mixture of skeptical curiosity and pain from his coughing fit. "H-hello," she said timidly, managing a small smile-grimace. His face relaxed into an expression of relief that was quite foreign to her, and she found herself wondering—as she had that first day—if the both of them were actually dead and in some sort of moonlit afterlife.

"How do you feel?" he asked, immediately straightening up and sitting on the edge of the armchair. His voice had a bit of a hoarse quality, as though he was getting over a cold.

"Like I was run over by the Knight Bus."

This seemed to amuse him, which in turn relieved Hermione, and he let out a small chuckle. "You can tell people that if you like. You have a rather interesting scar that may convince them," he said, getting up to flip the light switch.

Hermione let out another groan as the room was suddenly illuminated. "Scar?" she asked incredulously once her eyes readjusted. He gave her a look suggesting that she should stay put (as though she could move in the first place) and wordlessly left the room, returning after a few seconds and handing her a hand mirror.

"It's on your chest," he said. Hermione felt her cheeks turn a little pink at that news.

"It's not out of offense but rather curiosity that I ask this, Severus, but did you see…?"

"We were worried that something might have happened to your chest, since you kept clawing at it," said Severus nonchalantly. "So naturally, I had to take a look to make sure nothing was wrong. That's when I saw your scar."

She felt slightly horrified—not because it was particularly horrifying that he saw, but rather because she was now self-conscious and wondered what he thought of her assets—but said nothing as she pulled the collar of her button-down shirt down and slowly held up the little hand mirror.

"What in the world…?" she said, bewildered. There was a dark, starburst-shaped scar on her sternum in the center of her chest, as though someone had carved it into her skin with a knife. The starburst itself wasn't too big and only barely reached her breasts, but it had a few accompanying rays that spread from the center and radiated up to her collarbone and likely down to around her navel. She ran a finger along one of the lines and found to her dismay that it was slightly raised—it really was like someone had cut the pattern into her and then picked off the resulting scabs.

"Stunning spells are not inherently powerful enough to leave scars," said Severus, taking the mirror back when her arm began quivering. "Though Poppy and I believe that it scarred this time due to your…condition."

"I see. I don't suppose this is going to go away," she said absently, frowning as she felt the ridges of the scar. "How long was I asleep?"

"Almost three weeks now, I believe."

If she was drinking anything right now, she would have choked on it.

"_Three weeks?_"

"I was worried that you may not wake," Severus said quietly, though he had a thin smile on his face. "I am…relieved that you have proved me wrong. I should give you a gold star."

It wasn't difficult to see the worry evident in his face even under the veil of offhand sarcasm—she had the sudden urge to leap up to her feet (not that she could), to show that she was perfectly okay (not that she was) and that he needn't worry about her anymore. Since leaping up out of the bed was out of the question at the moment, she contented herself with giving him the cheeriest smile that she should muster.

"You're so generous today," she laughed, immediately regretting it when her abs burned from the laughter and she groaned in pain—which, in turn, gave Severus reason to look highly amused.

They fell into silence, before Hermione finally spoke again.

"Are you all right? You don't look very well," she ventured. She expected him to brush it off and, true to form, he gave her a slightly dismissive look and snorted once.

"I'm perfectly fine. Nothing to concern yourself about."

"You don't look 'perfectly fine.' You look the _complete_ opposite of 'perfectly fine.'"

He was silent for a moment and merely stared at her, his dark eyes unreadable, before he nodded and exhaled slowly. "Indeed. I am not 'perfectly fine.' But, if you still would like to try the Clearbell Potion once you recover, I believe I will be."

So even now, after that fiasco involving Sinclair and after he was _tortured_, Severus still wanted her to stay? He helped come up with the Clearbell Potion after all, so he knew exactly what to do and how to do it—and probably could have managed brewing it alone if he really wanted to. "I don't mind that," said Hermione, "but do you need me to help brew it? You look…terrible, and I know you could manage it on your own."

"I was loath to let you miss out on the satisfaction of seeing it work, and I won't be dying so soon," he said, giving a small shrug. Hermione wasn't sure she liked the way he said that; he sounded like he'd already given up.

"But...provided it works, you could be cured by now and you wouldn't have…_that_ all over your neck and face," Hermione said, gesturing vaguely at his head.

"What, this? Apparently it makes me look more dashing—the day Potter and Weasley visited, I passed a pair of local Muggle girls and they thought I had gotten a tattoo," he said, leaning against the armrest with that cheeky smile on his face.

"Dashing or not, you could have cured yourself while I was lying here."

"And suffer through your questions about how it went?" he said, arching an eyebrow at her. "It's better to simply let you see for yourself."

When Hermione gave him the most severe look that she could, he chuckled—probably to exacerbate her non-amusement at the conversation-deflection that she expected would come at any minute.

"Those Muggles seemed quite amused and mentioned something about tweeting or twitting or some nonsense once I passed. Have you heard of Twitter?"

Deflection ahoy.

"Don't deflect the conversation, Severus. I've caught on to your tricks," said Hermione, frowning at him. But she was unable to help herself and added, "Yes, I've heard of Twitter. What, you don't have an account, do you?"

He threw his head back and laughed, only to double over when a cough overtook him. "What could I possibly have to say that anyone would be the least bit interested in?" he said incredulously as he tried to clear his throat.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe you could tweet about the health that you so cleverly keep steering me away from?" Hermione said wryly, inwardly wincing at how harsh her voice sounded. Severus, however, didn't look the least bit surprised or troubled at her words and simply laughed again as he wiped his hand on a handkerchief.

"There isn't much to discuss, Hermione," said Severus flatly. "It follows this simple cycle: first, my entrails bleed, then I cough blood up, then I drink the potion, though sometimes not in that order. While I respect your mental acuity, there is no need to overthink this."

"But it's getting worse, isn't it?" Hermione persisted, heaving herself into a sitting position regardless of the pain. "If you don't brew it—you could—"

"I could _what_, Hermione? _Die? _Nobody will care!" he snapped, glaring at her in anger for the first time since she arrived. She cringed, caught off-guard by his sudden change in demeanor—and almost immediately, Severus seemed to regret his outburst, his face softening and his body sagging down into the chair. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get angry."

It took Hermione a moment to regain her composure. He had been so amicable ever since her arrival that she had almost forgotten that he was a man who had a history of anger mismanagement, and the way he snapped was like a wakeup call; it reminded her of who he was—of everything he had overcome, and of everything that he was now. But despite all of that, he had conquered it all, and done it while hiding away from the world that should have taken him back with open arms, and she had a deep admiration for it. Not that she didn't admire him before—her respect for him and his skills was why she ended up in Hawaii in the first place.

"I don't want you to die."

He gave her a bewildered look, as though it was unheard of for someone to actually care whether he was alive or not.

"The Memory Charm broke. I can remember everything that happened now," Hermione continued, resisting a smirk at the sight of his uncharacteristic confusion. "And I realized that I ended up here because…I asked the portkey to."

"You…_asked_ the portkey? Explain."

She hesitated a moment, considering the tracing spell put on all the Department Unspeakables to track them in the event that they diverged any top secret information, but figured, _fuck it_, they already knew she was in Hawaii. "I was studying portkeys when the accident happened and I got stuck…between places. I had been working on a potion and it reacted—_catastrophically_—when Richard modified my memory," she explained. She paused to laugh sheepishly. "It's a little funny, now that I think of it. The first thing I thought of was what you'd think of me if you could see that my potion failed. And the portkey made it so."

Severus had managed to clear his face of confusion and now seemed that he was clenching his jaw shut in an effort to keep it so. "You wondered what…_I_ would think? I was dead to you," he said slowly.

"You were, but I still wondered…I wondered what Professor Snape might have thought about the insufferable know-it-all's potion failing so spectacularly."

He stared at her, his dark eyes inscrutable. The silence that filled the room was heavy, almost stifling, and made Hermione wonder if she had overstepped her boundaries—if perhaps she was pushing him too far.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

Hermione stared back at him and found she was rather wondering the same thing. "I suppose I'm telling you...so you know that someone's thinking of you. You can't just…" She felt her eyes inexplicably threatening to tear up and struggled to hold it back, trying to mask her distress with a smile. "…You can't just die and think that nobody will care."

Silence again. Severus simply stared, whether from shock or rage or confusion, as Hermione sat there, patiently waiting for him to finish processing everything that she said.

"You should—you should go back to sleep," he said finally, his voice slightly hoarse. Without another word, he turned and swept out the room, flipping the light switch and shutting the door behind him.

Her smile slowly faded from her face as she sat unmoving in the darkness, listening to the sounds of his footsteps as he left the house. Her body felt oddly numb at his sudden departure, as though he had slapped her in the face before leaving. With a sigh, she eased herself onto her back and pulled the sheets over her face.

Why did she suddenly feel like crying?

* * *

Hermione was profoundly grateful for the fact that this time around, she wasn't rendered a pseudo-paraplegic. Although her body was still sore as hell, she found that it wasn't difficult to move and that she could still stand.

It just made her a little sad that she was standing alone in the room.

She woke up an hour or so after dawn to find an omelette and glass of orange juice waiting for her on the nightstand, but Severus's armchair was conspicuously—disappointingly—empty. Considering the time and how cold the omelette was, she wondered what time Severus might have gotten up (if he even went to sleep last night). Guilt began churning in her stomach as she ate her breakfast; she hadn't meant to make him angry. It was the last thing she wanted—all she wanted was to show him that someone cared and that he shouldn't think so lightly of his failing health.

Hermione sat on the edge of the bed once she finished the omelette, staring at the floor in dejection. She had to make it right somehow…Perhaps she'd go find him and apologize for pestering him like that. The idea made her feel rather better and, slightly emboldened, she got to her feet and slowly crept into the hallway, grimacing at the incredible soreness in her legs. The hallway—and indeed, the entire house—was eerily quiet. She peered across the corridor and found the colored paper on the potion room's door on its green side, and when she reached the kitchen, she found that it was empty as well.

As she passed the open living room window to wash her plate, she looked out toward the beach and found Severus in the distance, pacing back and forth at the edge of the water. He paused to cough or blast holes into the sand with his wand every so often, before continuing his almost feverish pacing up and down the beach. It was almost as though he was trying to purge several years' worth of frustrations by blasting the sand into kingdom come as he paced, and he looked just like the old, angry Potions Master that used to prowl the corridors of Hogwarts.

Hermione could never forgive herself if she was the cause of this sudden collapse of Friendly Severus's personality, and she was about to run outside and beg for forgiveness when she realized that Danny was on the beach as well. The trees had obscured her view of him from the window, but once she went to the door to get a better look, she found him standing a short distance from where Severus was pacing, hands in his pockets looking perfectly untroubled at his friend's tempestuous mood. He seemed to be saying something to Severus, though the latter was not taking it very well and was clenching his fists in frustration. It only seemed to amuse Danny even more, because he laughed and threw his hands up toward the sky before pointing back to Severus.

However, it seemed that Severus had enough of whatever it was Danny was saying to him, because he jabbed his wand into the air and moments later his surfboard went sailing from underneath his hammock and into the water. Danny shook his head in disappointment and turned to walk to the house as Severus pulled his shirt off and stormed into the water after his surfboard, fuming. Hermione was a little perplexed by the amused and almost smug expression Danny was wearing on his face as he strolled back, and if her ears weren't deceiving her, he was even humming something.

"Oh, hey, Hermione!" Danny called when he caught sight of her in the doorway. He trotted up to the porch and leapt up the steps, grinning. "Glad to see you're finally awake, sleepyhead."

"Is something wrong with Severus?" she asked quietly as Danny pulled her into a hug.

"Who, him? Nah, he's just freaking out," he said, laughing as he let her go. "Give him a few hours and he'll be okay."

"'Freaking out'? Is he…mad at me?"

"What? Who could be mad at you?" Danny scoffed, plopping himself down into a chair on the porch and gesturing for her to do the same. "He's the one with the problem, not you."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Hermione, sitting in the chair beside him.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll get over it later and tell you what was bugging him. Probably say something like, 'Forgive me, Hermione, I wasn't in control of my actions or whatever,'" said Danny in his best (but utterly horrible) imitation of Severus's accent. He seemed to think the accent was hilarious and said "quite" and "whatever" and, for some reason, "quite whatever" a few times with the terrible accent while Hermione stared at him in horror. Was this what he thought they sounded like?

As Danny continued to chuckle to himself—apparently he was having a hell of a good time trying to sound like an Englishman—Hermione caught sight of a healing but blotchy bruise on his neck and frowned. A wound from the battle, perhaps?

"Danny, thank you for your help," she said once he had exhausted his laughter. "Thank you for…saving us."

"Nah, it was nothing. I'm just glad I showed up when I did," he laughed, settling back into the chair. "Who knows what that jerk would've done to you guys?"

"Right…So you work with the Magical Bureau of Investigations? Did you know any of this was going to…going to happen? Is that why you showed up?"

"I work for the MBI and I suspected some weirdness was going on, but I didn't think anyone would attack you like that—not so soon, anyway. I was just coming over to pick up some potions," he said, giving her an apologetic look.

Hermione gave him a sort of half-smile to acknowledge his rueful face. "Thank you all the same," she said. "Anyway, I was wondering—do you manage the distribution business _and_ work for the MBI?"

"It's really my mom that owns the distribution business. I just help out with deliveries and supplies when she needs it. She loves Severus because his potions are always on time," Danny explained, smiling. "You should hear her going on about how he's such a nice man who is _so_ smart and _so_ dependable. I think she likes him better than me!" Hermione snorted in amusement and laughed as Danny imitated his mother's mannerisms—the image of an adorable old Asian woman doting on an uncomfortable Severus was hilarious.

"So, Danny, your name…Your name is Daisuke?"

"Yep. I grew up in Nevada and I used to get mad that all the kids and teachers kept butchering my name. Even after I pronounced it for them, they'd keep saying it weird like 'dye sooky' or 'day skay,'" said Danny, wrinkling his nose. "One teacher was trying to call roll once and somehow read my name as 'Dooseeky.' So I just made it easier for them and started introducing myself as Danny."

"Oh, I see," said Hermione. "That's unfortunate."

"Nah, 'Daisuke' is cake compared to my Vietnamese buddy's name. If you want unfortunate, then 'Dung Long' is as unfortunate as you can get. Apparently it means 'dragon hero' or whatever, but try telling 12-year-olds that." He gave her a sidelong glance and burst into laughter at the sight of her baffled face. "In any case, Hermione, I've gotta go. I have a ton of paperwork to do…"

"Oh, right. I'll see you later, then?" she said as he got up and stretched—Danny always seemed to have somewhere to go and something to do, and she was rather amazed that he never betrayed any weariness or fatigue.

"Yeah, I'll drop by when I finish. Take care!" he said, giving her a roguish salute before hopping off the porch and Disapparating.

She slouched in her seat once she was left alone again, sighing. She figured that whatever it was that Severus was "freaking out" about was something related to her, considering Danny's words about him having a problem. Did he really dislike the idea of someone wishing that he was _not_ dead so much that he threw a fit about it? She wondered if he'd be more comfortable with the other extreme—for her to wish he _was_ dead—but found she didn't like the idea at all, because it seemed exceptionally likely for him to prefer such a thing. And when she watched his motionless form out in the distance, sitting out in the water on his surfboard as he stared out into the horizon, a little voice told her that he was probably thinking just that.

That thought upset Hermione, and she figured that she wouldn't fix it by sitting on the porch.

Hermione got to her feet and tightened the knot on her sarong before making her way to the water and pushing through the small, oncoming waves. Severus looked over his shoulder when he heard her forcing herself through the shallows and frowned. "Hermione, what are you doing? Get back to the shore," he called.

"No," she replied flatly as she began to slowly paddle toward him, her body much too sore to manage any sort of swimming stroke other than a dog paddle. She tried to ignore the way he stared her down as she made her way toward him and hoped that he wasn't so angry that he wouldn't rescue her if her body failed her and she started drowning.

He didn't say anything when she finally reached him and clung to the surfboard, gasping for air due to the sheer effort of swimming after lying in bed for three weeks. Severus waited patiently for her breathing to return to some semblance of normal before speaking. "Why did you come out here?" he asked quietly, and she was immensely relieved that his voice held none of the anger or contempt that she had initially prepared for.

"I—I wanted to apologize," Hermione managed to say, looking up at him from the water. Though she was expecting him to react negatively in some manner, she wasn't quite expecting that he would look so confused by her words.

"Apologize? For what?"

"Er…I feel that I overstepped my boundaries last night. Please forgive me, Severus."

She stared at him earnestly, hoping to channel her sincerity through her eyes and forcing herself to keep eye contact with him regardless that she wanted desperately to turn away. It was clear he was evaluating her—his eyes searching hers for some incongruity, to see if there was any façade hidden behind her eyes—and it seemed like an eternity before he silently accepted her apology, nodding his head once as he scooted himself farther back on the surfboard.

"Sit," he said, nodding to the other end of the board.

It proved difficult for her to heave herself out of the water and she splashed lamely as her legs got tangled in the wet fabric of her sarong, until Severus mercifully took pity on her and pulled her out by the arm. "Thank you," she said breathlessly as she extricated a leg from the sarong and straddled the surfboard, facing him.

"You've done nothing wrong," he said, his eyes briefly locking with hers once more before turning out toward the ocean.

"Then, if you don't mind me asking…What's bothering you?" Hermione asked curiously, brushing wet hair from her eyes.

Severus ignored her for a few moments, staring out into the ocean as they were gently rocked by the water, before an almost pained smile emerged on his face. "You know, I went to Japan because I'd heard that there was a kitsune problem in Aokigahara. Kitsune behave similarly to hinkypunks," he said, still gazing out into the ocean's expanse. When she didn't say anything, he turned his head slightly to look at her. "Have you heard of Aokigahara?"

"No, I haven't."

"Aokigahara is a thick forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji—sometimes it's called the Sea of Trees, and because of how dense it is, it's quite easy to get lost and it's very quiet. Almost unnaturally so."

"Oh, that sounds peaceful. It must be beautiful there," said Hermione brightly, but her face fell when Severus gave a muted laugh.

"It is…an unnerving place. The locals say that once you go in, the forest makes you lose the ability to second-guess yourself. I can't say I disagree," he said. "And it is second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco as the most popular place to commit suicide."

Hermione put a hand to her mouth and was about to blurt something like _oh dear Severus, did you try it_, but quickly caught herself so as not to interrupt his story. "But regardless of the forest's sinister reputation, I felt—I felt at peace there," Severus continued, bowing his head slightly. "It used to be a place where they took the elderly and the infirm to die—it was a place for unwanted people to _disappear_. They say it's the most haunted location in Japan—a sort of purgatory for restless spirits. It's…it's almost poetic, isn't it?"

'Poetic' is what he called it?

"Even after brewing the potion to repair the damage from Nagini's venom, I was still quite ill," he continued, giving another somber laugh. "I was ill and wanted desperately to disappear, so when I heard of the kitsune attacks in Aokigahara, I went there and I hid myself deep in the forest, where I thought nobody would find my body. Who would look for me in Japan?" He paused to let out a bitter laugh. "Of course, _Minerva_ would look for me in Japan. I must have been too ill to realize she was following me. I was half dead when she finally found me…"

He let out a strangled sob that startled Hermione—she never expected that Severus could have made a sound like that—and he slumped forward, his shoulders sagging miserably and his head hanging down. He looked so despondent and so _defeated_, what with the dark lines spreading all over his torso and the way his entire chest seemed to heave with every breath, that Hermione hardly questioned herself when she edged forward on the surfboard and pulled him into a tight hug. His body stiffened at her touch, but she refused to let go. _He needs this_, she told herself firmly, and felt a flutter of relief in her stomach when she felt him relax in her arms.

"All the things I did—I know that people wished for me to die," he said quietly. "Even _I_ wanted to die…"

"What about now?" Hermione whispered. "Please don't tell me that you still feel that way."

Her heart stopped in the silence, and she felt something warm drip onto her shoulder.

"No. I can't say that I do."

* * *

_A/N: Wow, I kinda got a little sappy there for a moment._

_Anywho, Aokigahara's got a pretty creepy history. Apparently the people that lived near it would leave old people and sick people in the forest to die when they couldn't take care of themselves anymore, and their restless spirits would haunt the forest with their mournful screams. And the forest is so dense that you can't hear any outside noise, and it is as if the forest doesn't want you to ever go back out. It got really popular as a suicide spot after the author of _The Complete Manual of Suicide_ said that Aokigahara was "the perfect place to die," and sometimes they find bodies with that book on them. The problem has gotten so bad that there are signs around the forest telling people to reconsider killing themselves, and they installed security cameras on the trails leading into it. Apparently the locals can tell when someone goes into the forest with the intent to return, and when someone goes in to die. Also, even creepier - apparently the police stations where they keep the bodies have two beds: one for the body and one for an officer to sleep next to it, because if the body is left alone, the deceased's spirit will scream all night and go to the normal sleeping quarters. Can you imagine having to keep a dead body company through the night? D:_

_So yeah. Aokigahara. I thought about visiting there when I go to Japan in April, but now that I read up on it, I'm sure as hell not going by myself. Watch me get distracted by a fox or something and end up getting lost and dying somewhere deep in the forest (incidentally, that's what kitsune do, according to legends). Haha, I told my friend I was interested in visiting it and he thought I wanted to kill myself. _

_For the record, the way Danny talks is how I would talk, and I totally cracked myself up trying to say "Forgive me, Hermione, I wasn't in control of my actions or whatever." I suck at sounding British. God, I love British accents (English? Apparently there's no "British" accent).  
_


	10. Chapter Ten

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Ten**

"God dammit, Hermione, why are you so good at this game?"

"Triple word score as well, I'm afraid."

Danny sullenly scrawled Hermione's astronomical Scrabble score on a pad of paper as she rummaged about in the small bag for more letters. "I knew I should have just brought my Quaffle again," he said, frowning as he put the pencil down. Severus smirked at him from across the table.

"You're just angry that your vocabulary leaves much to be desired."

"Well, sorry if I don't talk as flowery as you all the time," said Danny, though his pout had become an impish grin. "I reserve all my big words for _special_ occasions." Hermione nearly spit out her drink when he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"'Special occasions'?" she sputtered, quickly wiping her face with a paper towel as she laughed. "What occasions might those be?"

He furtively leaned over the table toward her. "There are some things best kept secret, Hermione. Right, Sevvy-poo?" Danny said cheekily, wiggling his eyebrows at Severus. Hermione couldn't help but burst into laughter at the sight of Severus's expression and the subsequent dish rag that he threw at Danny's face.

They had been graced with Danny's presence again after it seemed he was struck with evening boredom, because he had suddenly showed up shortly after sunset with a worn Scrabble box under his arm. Hermione was beginning to suspect that his frequent visits to chat or play games were simply pretenses for monitoring the area around Severus's home for suspicious activity, but she found that it didn't matter to her much, as she'd grown to like his directness and sense of humor and they all seemed to have fun whenever he came by—Severus included. She had only woken up from her three-week coma two days ago, but he acted as though she'd never been comatose in the first place. Indeed, after she spoke with him the morning that she finally awoke, he returned in the afternoon with a Quaffle and they ended up talking and playing catch for nearly an hour.

Hermione had spent a good part of the morning out in the water with Severus in her arms that day. They had been silent the whole time following his rather distressing story about his attempt at disappearing into the Aokigahara forest—she had held him close in silence, and the only sounds came from the pulsing of the ocean and the wheezing of his lungs as he breathed. But she could tell that it did a lot of good for him; when they returned to the shore, the utter dejection was gone from his face and his body was relaxed again, the catharsis clear—no longer did he stomp tense with rage and frustration.

"Thank you," was what he quietly said to her before he left to put his surfboard away.

Relief had spread through her upon Danny's arrival with a Quaffle. He badgered the pair of them into playing catch and, after a few throws, it seemed that they were back to exchanging sarcastic remarks like nothing had ever happened. She was glad that Severus had someone like Danny around—Danny was shrewder than he appeared, and if she wasn't mistaken, it seemed Danny was deliberately piling on the witticisms and hurling the ball at Severus in order to keep his friend's mind off things. It seemed to work, anyway, even if he got a face full of Quaffle courtesy of Severus's throwing arm.

"Is 'rat' really all you can manage right now?" Severus drawled in mock boredom as he watched Danny place tiles on the Scrabble board.

"Dude, all I've got are vowels right now!" Danny said indignantly. "But we might as well be done—Hermione's beating the both of us and we're out of letters."

"I quite liked this game. It's been a while since I've played any Muggle games. Thank you for bringing it," said Hermione brightly as Danny piled the letter tiles back into the little velvet bag.

"I love Non games—nothing exploding or spraying junk at you," he laughed, wrinkling his nose. "I can leave it here if you want. You and Severus can have a rematch."

Regardless of what Hermione actually wanted, Danny ended up leaving her with the game once he took his leave. "So, Severus," said Hermione, turning on her heel to look at him after shutting the front door, "what sorts of 'special' things do you do with Danny?"

"Your brain would likely collapse upon itself if I told you such dark secrets. What would I tell Potter and Weasley when they find you brain-dead in my sitting room?" Snape said from the kitchen before he downed a glass of his crimson potion. After the battle with Sinclair and his little friends, he had resorted to taking the potion every few hours to keep from coughing up enough blood to repaint his walls. It seemed that the Cruciatus Curse had amplified the effects of Nagini's venom on his body and reduced the ability for the potion to cope with it—he still burst into coughs every now and again and had a noticeable wheeze whenever he took a breath.

"Perhaps that will be my next research project: the effects of Severus Snape's dark secrets on the human brain," Hermione laughed, taking a seat on the living room couch as she picked up a parchment on the coffee table and nestled herself into the cushions. "It can be developed into a revolutionary new alternative to the Dementor's Kiss."

"The crime rates are sure to go down should that take off," he said impassively, though Hermione glimpsed the smirk on his face before he wandered into the dark hallway and disappeared.

Hermione turned her attention to the parchment in her hands once Severus left the room. She had outlined the procedure for the Clearbell Potion one last time out of an obsessive desire to make sure everything was in order so they wouldn't catastrophically botch it. Yesterday she was able to convince Severus to begin brewing the potion—she couldn't quite understand why he was so reluctant to try it—so they were already finished with the first step of the admittedly short procedure. The only reason it would take two weeks to complete was the long period of time they allocated to allow for the clearbell's slow integration speed. If the potion still looked good tomorrow and wasn't spewing clouds of smoke into the room or oozing sentient globules of slime, then they'd continue with the most difficult part of the potion.

She looked up when she heard Severus approaching and found he was holding the same basin from when they rolled Pepperup potion into little, chewable balls. Peering into it curiously when he set it down on the coffee table, she found that this time it contained a light blue gel that reminded her of the ocean. It was almost translucent—almost like gel toothpaste. "Help me roll these?" asked Severus, taking a seat next to her and conjuring a jar.

"What kind of potion is this one?" she asked as she tentatively put her fingers into the basin. Unlike the Pepperup, which made her hand warm and tingly and felt like dung, this one was cool to the touch and felt like putty.

"Painkiller potion," Severus replied simply. "Try to do these quickly, because it will numb your hands."

Quickly indeed. If it was even possible, he was rolling the potion into balls faster than he had doing Pepperup—his hands flew from his hand to his jar at almost double the speed that Hermione was able to manage. But, it was a little easier to roll this potion than the Pepperup, she soon discovered. It only required a little coaxing to get it to take a spherical shape, almost as though it wanted to be a ball in the first place. She paused to watch Severus work when she finished her handful, in awe of the speed and dexterity of his fingers, before digging her hand into the gel once more. This time she tried to imitate him and use only her fingers to roll the balls instead of both hands, and found that it was much easier with this potion than the dung-like Pepperup potion.

"You learn quickly," said Snape in amusement, laughing without turning to look at her.

"Surely you knew that already, _Professor_," she said wryly.

"This potion is easier to roll than Pepperup, so I wouldn't get too cocky, _Miss Granger_." He turned to fix her with a wide-eyed and rather unsettling stare. It was obvious he was trying to bewilder her with his bizarre expression, but she was determined not to let him and, with gusto, she drew herself up and returned the wide-eyed glare.

Without either of them speaking a word, it turned into an impromptu staring contest. Hermione could feel her eyes watering and her lower eyelids twitching, while Severus seemed as relaxed as could be. Soon, her eyes threatened to wander, but with all her might, she refocused her gaze on his dark eyes—the dark, calculating, but as of late, warm eyes. After a moment, she felt her mind beginning to cloud over—lost in his eyes—and was suddenly struck with a vague and inexplicable desire to keep him out of her thoughts for fear of what he might find there, of what _she_ might find there—

"Hermione? _Hermione._"

She blinked and found Severus watching her with a mixture of curiosity and concern and was gently tapping her cheek with his fingers to snap her out of whatever daze she'd somehow put herself in. "Wh-what?" she murmured in confusion.

"You were Occluding—a little too well, in fact. Why?" It wasn't a question.

"Was I? I'm—I'm not sure what happened. Sorry," Hermione said, shaking her head vigorously to get rid of the haze. She gave him a smile to indicate that she was A-OK, which seemed to satisfy him since he turned back to continue rolling.

"I suppose I should admit defeat," he said as he dropped another ball into the jar, "though you won that staring contest thanks to your underhanded strategy."

It was impossible for her to suppress her laugh. "'Underhanded strategy,' was it? I didn't put myself into some trance on purpose," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You must have something you want to hide—otherwise, that little trance wouldn't have happened," said Severus, tipping his head ever so slightly toward her. "There is a right way and a wrong way to perform Occlumency. I believe you just discovered the wrong way."

He didn't push the issue further, for which Hermione was grateful. If he asked what it was she was trying to hide from him, she wouldn't be able to tell him.

Or rather, she had _some_ sort of idea, but it was a little unnerving and she preferred to push it to the back of her mind.

Deep in the back of her mind.

To her relief, he launched into a story about how he was prowling around the Hogwarts library a few years before she first attended and found a bright, enterprising seventh-year in an ill-conceived Occlumency trance, drooling all over a book from the restricted section. "I had to slap him in the face to snap him out of it," said Severus in amusement. "The boy nearly sprinted away once he packed away his things. Fell flat on his face when he tripped over his own feet."

"You had to _slap_ him?" Hermione said incredulously. "Isn't there some sort of rule or something against things like that?"

"Indeed, but he wasn't about to wake up from me whispering gently in his ear," he said, shrugging and getting another handful of gel. "So I hit him."

"There was no in-between?" Hermione laughed, scraping the last of the potion out of the basin with some difficulty, as her hands were beginning to go numb. "Whisper gently or hit him? Were those your only two options?"

"I am a man of extremes," he said loftily as he finished with his handful. He watched in mild amusement as she struggled with hers—the numbness in her hands had come suddenly and unexpectedly and she found that she could barely move them anymore. When her fingers stopped working, Severus laughed and took the gel from her, quickly rolling the last few balls as she slapped her hands against her thighs in an attempt to get them working again.

"Why aren't your hands numb too?" she said, slightly cross when she realized he wasn't in nearly as much distress as she was.

"The skin on my hands is thicker than yours, and you were using your entire hand to roll," he said, smirking. "The numbness should wear off in thirty minutes or so."

"Thirty minutes?"

He held his hands up and rubbed his palms together. "Try doing this. The heat might make it wear off a little faster."

Obediently, she gave it a try and frowned when her fingers began lacing between each other so that she couldn't quite rub her palms together, and then got worse as the numbness began to spread to her wrists, making her hands flop around in a way that made it even _more_ difficult to accomplish what should have been a simple task. She felt her face beginning to burn as she clumsily forged on, feeling intensely aware of the amusement that was spreading over Severus's face. It was becoming futile to continue—she was just about ready to give up in exasperation and wait for the potion to wear off.

Or she was, anyway, until Severus took her hand and began to vigorously rub them.

"What are you—?" she started, but he scoffed.

"Be quiet."

It was bizarre to watching him rub her hand—she couldn't feel it, so it was as though her arm was getting jerked around by some invisible weight on the end of her forearm. But ever so slowly, she felt a tingle that started in her palm and slowly spread to her fingers. "The feeling is coming back," she said, laughing nervously. He wordlessly released her hand and nodded expectantly to her other one.

She could have handled it from there, but she held up her hand nonetheless.

He proceeded in silence, quickly rubbing his palms against hers, until she managed to twitch a finger. Almost immediately he stopped and let go, before looking up at her expectantly. "Better?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Y-yes, thank you."

"Good," he said simply before getting up to take the jar of painkiller balls and the empty basin back to the potion room.

Hermione watched his retreating form and hoped to high heaven that the flush she felt on her face wasn't as noticeable as she thought it might be. It slightly troubled her that she was feeling this way—it wasn't as though he meant anything by it, right? "It" being the hand-rubbing bit. And perhaps "it" was also the salve bit from when they rolled Pepperup potion. And perhaps—perhaps everything.

Severus Snape just did whatever the hell he wanted, right? He earned that right.

But then by that logic, it meant that he indeed wanted it.

_Fuuuuuuck._

But perhaps she was trying to read into things a little too much. Maybe they were just delusions of a woman who just spent three weeks in a coma after being attacked by traitorous Aurors. Friendly Severus was different from Professor Snape, so perhaps this was simply par for the course for Friendly Severus. She thought for a moment, wondering if he'd do the same if, say, it was Luna rather than herself. Yes, she could see that happening. Perhaps not Ginny—Hermione expected she'd be too close to Harry for Severus to be comfortable with it.

Then again, she herself was a member of the famous trio; ergo, much too close to Harry for comfort. The insufferable know-it-all. The bane of his classroom existence.

And so she was right back where she started.

Everything he did was precisely calculated, she was sure of it. He was a master of timing—she'd choked on drinks more times in her month on the island than she could remember over the past few _years_. He knew exactly where to push to get her to react in an amusing way (which often involved her irritation). But she didn't want to get ahead of herself. She was reading much too far into the whole situation and should really just focus on the present. Presently, she was convinced that he didn't see her as anything more than perhaps a pet hamster or maybe an unlikely friend—she was just a former student that had washed up on his beach after an accident with a portkey and unfortunately got him wrapped up in a Ministry matter that didn't concern him.

But as she watched him emerge from the hallway and go into the kitchen to get a glass of water, she realized that she didn't really mind it—any of the "it." A bit unsettling, perhaps, but once she thought rationally about it, it probably wasn't as big a deal as her initial reaction to it was. Conversations with him were not tiring, but were instead quite enjoyable and often forced her to keep on her toes. He was not overbearing and didn't question it when she needed to be left in peace, and indeed, fed her every so often. Not to mention his droll sense of humor. And his physique was nothing to scoff at.

Oh dear.

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuck me._

Er, not that she wanted him to do so. But that wouldn't be bad. Or would it? But why the hell would he want to?

…

What the _hell._

Fortunately (or unfortunately), all thought was forestalled when she felt the left side of her face beginning to grow numb.

Horrified, she realized she was losing control of her tongue as well—as if a dentist had happily injected her mouth with local anesthetic without telling her. She brought her hand to her face and felt a thin layer of what must have been the painkiller gel on her cheek.

"_Dammit, Theberuth, when did you pud id on my fathe?_"

Wry laughter rang out from the kitchen.

* * *

Making pancakes turned out to be a good way to keep one's mind off things, which Hermione found to be quite helpful for her current predicament. She couldn't get a wink of sleep the night before—her mind simply hadn't let her—and she couldn't understand why. It was probably just a case of overthinking things. There was nothing fundamentally different now, was there?

Well, that's what she told herself, anyway.

Fake it till you make it, right?

The depth of her reflections was such that she didn't even notice that Severus was in the house until he was opening the cupboard to her left, wheezing heavily as he pulled out the flask of crimson potion. He was shirtless—judging by his damp hair, she presumed he had just gone surfing or swimming—and she saw the worrisome dark and veiny lines spreading out from the scar on his neck. The lines were now more dense and weblike, covering much of his upper torso and going down to his elbows and up to his jawline. Without a shirt, the heaving of his chest seemed all the more pronounced, and the tendons in his neck were stretched tight as he struggled to draw breath.

"How do you feel?" she asked quietly once he gulped down half the flask of potion and exhaled in relief. He gave a noncommittal shrug as he put the bottle away.

"Better now."

He leaned pensively against the counter a little way from her and watched as she poured the last of the pancake batter into the pan. "Is something the matter?" he asked after a few silent minutes.

"What do you mean?" she said, looking away from the pan and smiling at him. He arched an eyebrow at her and waited, as though expecting her to answer her own question, before he turned to pull plates out of a cupboard.

"You seem out of sorts is all, Hermione." And without another word, he busied himself with putting plates and silverware on the table.

Hermione watched motionlessly as he set the table before she finally tore herself away when she smelled burning pancake. As she hurriedly turned back to the stove and scraped the pancake off the pan to flip it, she felt incredibly self-conscious. How did he _do_ that? Was he really just that good at reading people after a two-sentence exchange? With most people, it wasn't difficult to fool them into thinking that there wasn't anything wrong, with the exception of perhaps Luna, Ginny, and Harry.

But she quickly caught herself. It wouldn't do to go jumping to conclusions again.

"Shall we start on the second phase of the potion after we eat?" asked Hermione brightly as she brought the stack of pancakes to the dining table.

"I suppose," he said absently while he poured hot water into a teapot. There was that hesitation again. What was it about the Clearbell Potion that made him so reluctant? She was so confident in their combined calculations that it was probably more likely that a meteorite would smash into the island than it was for the potion to fail.

They ate in relative silence, Hermione rereading a few passages of a potions book while Severus read the day's edition of the _Pacific Register_, a newspaper that was apparently the go-to source for both national and international news for the Western US magical community. It was a typical morning—the both of them quietly immersed in reading material while eating and sipping tea or coffee—but Hermione felt ill at ease and it irritated her because she _shouldn't_ be.

"It looks like the Ministry couldn't keep the media away any longer," he said with mild interest. "There's a small article here about how British Ministry employees were arrested in the United States. It's quite vague."

"Ministry 'employees'?" said Hermione, looking up from her book with her fork halfway to her mouth.

"It seems Potter has learned how to control the media, or the manipulate the Ministry bureaucrats that control it," he said with a small laugh. "No mention of Aurors or Hit Wizards, or of you or me. Well done, Potter."

It was a little odd to hear such an outright compliment for Harry—though she expected he voiced it because Harry wasn't around to hear—and she couldn't help but laugh. Severus looked up from the paper as though looking at her over the rims of invisible glasses. "Something amusing you?" he asked, the corners of his mouth turned up in a thin smile.

"To think that a compliment for Harry Potter would ever pass your lips," Hermione said cheekily.

"Quite shocking, isn't it?" he said, chuckling. He turned back to the newspaper, and then added, "I see you're in better spirits now."

"There wasn't anything wrong in the first place."

"Is that so?" he said without looking up from the paper.

Of course it wasn't and he knew it, but it wasn't like she was going to explain herself. He didn't speak of it for the rest of the meal—or indeed, didn't speak at all, and Hermione was inordinately relieved when she finished her plate. She silently swore at herself for being so "out of sorts," as Severus so aptly put it, and was only able to calm her nerves by vigorously washing the dirty dishes and reminding herself that the next step of the Clearbell Potion would require careful precision that she couldn't jeopardize with silly concerns.

"All right, then," said Severus once he got up from the table. He gathered up his plate and teacup and gently edged her away from the sink with a shoulder so that he could wash his own dishes. "Are you ready, Hermione?"

"Ready as ever, Severus."

She followed him into the potion room and began preparing materials while he warded the door shut. "No pain?" he asked once he finished. Hermione smiled and shook her head.

"None at all."

If anything good came from those three unconscious weeks, it was the fact that her body was almost completely tolerant to magic once more. Only the most advanced spells prompted any sort of twinge in her chest, like trying to perhaps conjure a healthy Labrador retriever or perform human transfiguration. Her initial worry after waking was that the battle with Sinclair and the Hit Wizards might have _reset_ her recovery, but she had rejoiced once she realized that she was in even _better_ health than she had been before her little coma. And when she thought back at the time frame in which Madam Pomfrey expected her to recover, she was right on schedule. She hoped that she'd be back one hundred percent by the time the Clearbell Potion was finished.

Then Severus could get her out of his hair and go back to doing whatever it was he did before she so rudely dropped in on him.

There was a tiny twinge of hesitation in a deep corner of her mind.

"The potion looks ready. What do you think?" said Hermione, busying herself with examining the cauldron on the worktable before them. It was a deep violet color and gently rippled at the slightest sounds in the room. Severus peered in, scrutinizing it briefly before nodding and passing her a glass stirring rod.

"I see no problems with it. Are you ready to begin?" he asked, readying a worn pocket watch on the table.

"Ready," she replied, squaring her shoulders to steel herself. They couldn't fail—not when clearbell was involved. The little, unassuming root's appearance was deceptive and looked harmless enough in spite of the fact that it could cause a catastrophic reaction should they handle it incorrectly. Severus carefully took the clearbell root out of its protective casing—a glass decanter whose interior was coated with a special shielding solution—and readied a silver knife as he carefully watched the second hand of the pocket watch tick closer to the twelve.

"Begin."

Hermione took three chips of Wiggentree bark and carefully dropped them into the potion. Immediately, it began to bubble and emit a faint vapor that smelled faintly of rosemary. Hermione waited calmly for Severus's signal—after two minutes, he nodded, prompting her to take a small vial of dittany oil and pour it into the cauldron. The bubbling became less pronounced, but the rosemary-scented vapor grew stronger and more pronounced. At this point, she allowed her mind to wander a bit—it would be seven minutes before the next portion—and thought that she rather liked having a competent lab partner that didn't blither foolishly or require constant direction. She had managed a total of two potions working with Richard before banishing him from the potion-brewing portions of their experiments: he was never confident in his movements and always second-guessed himself until she approved of whatever task he was trying to accomplish. It was faster and less stressful to simply brew the potions herself.

"In one minute, I will cut the first slice of clearbell," said Severus, readying his hands while Hermione readied the glass stirrer.

When the second hand of the watch reached the twelve, he took the knife and carefully cut a thin slice of clearbell root. He grunted and his hand visibly twitched when the slice left the root and fell into the potion, but Hermione didn't dare speak and break his concentration or hers—she did hazard a quick glance at him to make sure the clearbell hadn't affected him negatively. "I'm fine," he said quietly as she began stirring. She nodded to acknowledge him, relieved, and slowly stirred clockwise three times as Severus began counting off the seconds. After thirty, he cut another thin slice and let it fall in, his hand twitching again. Counterclockwise she stirred this time as he counted off another thirty seconds, his voice keeping her mind and body in rhythm. The rosemary-scented vapor grew fog-like and began spilling over the edges of the cauldron and off the table as she stirred, and she felt her arm tingle every time it passed through the vapor—eventually she had to switch hands to relieve it of the unpleasant tingling.

Beads of sweat had broken out on both Severus's forehead and hers by the time they neared the end of the clearbell root, both from the strain of slicing and stirring as well as the stifling heat generated by the potion. It was the tenth minute of their clearbell-stir procedure and the both of them were struggling to keep the rhythm going. Hermione's hands and arms were tingling uncomfortably due to the vapor, making it difficult to hold on to the stirring rod, and Severus's clearbell hand was quivering uncontrollably, making it difficult for him to make clean cuts. It was clear by now that, had either of them tried to brew the potion alone, failure might have been a very likely development. But they forged on, reassured by each other's presence, and when the clearbell root was finally too small to be sliced any more, Severus put the tiny, blackening piece aside and set the knife down in relief.

His counting didn't falter at all as he moved—Hermione still needed to stir for one more minute before this phase of the potion would be complete.

"Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, _sixty_." He nodded to her as he ended his count, and Hermione gratefully removed the rod from the cauldron. The vapor suddenly receded, as though it was being sucked back up by the potion, leaving them with a brilliantly translucent violet potion sitting motionlessly in the cauldron. Hermione picked up her wand and tapped the cauldron's edge once.

"_Pro_ _veneno, viscera integratum._"

As if in acknowledgment, the potion rippled before going still.

Hermione took a step back and sighed in relief she clenched and unclenched her stiff fingers. "That was more difficult than I expected," she said, giving Severus a weary smile. He seemed to return the sentiment and pulled his sweat-dampened hair away from his face as he exhaled slowly.

"Indeed."

The pair stood there in the stuffy, rosemary-scented potion room simply staring at each other in the midst of a rather pregnant silence that was punctuated by the sounds of his rattling breaths. Hermione felt as though words were trying to surface in her mind, but she couldn't quite grasp them and they fell back into ambiguity. "So…" she said lamely, nervously drumming her fingers on her forearm. He had the audacity to laugh at her anxiety, but it somehow dispelled all the tension in the room.

"Do you fancy a swim, Hermione?"

* * *

_A/N: So I've run into a bit of a fix here. I can finish off Flotsam in about 2 or 3 chapters and leave the whole Sinclair thing for a different fic, or I can just make Flotsam really long. Well, not reeeaaally long, but still. Thoughts?_

_Pardon my bastard Latin. I think I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to use the correct verb and noun forms, but that's no substitute for actually learning Latin. Haha. And as always, please let me know if you notice any typos and stuff.  
_

_I'm actually going to be in Hawaii for the next week for a wedding, so please don't expect any updates for at least another two. Sorry! I'll have plenty of coconuts and macadamia nuts in honor of you guys. XD_

_Finally, here are some things I drew that you guys might get a kick out of (two links to deviantART, remove the spaces): http: / / fav. me/ d3bg7lx , http: / / fav. me/ d3bk610_


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Flotsam**

**

* * *

**

**Chapter Eleven**

Hermione wasn't quite sure what she had been thrust into.

Her first mistake was trotting to the house from the far end of the beach to greet Danny when she saw him chit-chatting with Severus on the porch, thinking he'd simply shown up that evening to relieve his boredom like most other evenings. Her next mistake was to humor him and listening to some spiel he had about going to his mother's sixty-fifth birthday party. Her final mistake that doomed both herself and Severus was her adamant insistence that "it couldn't be that bad" and "he's inviting us, so it'd be rude not to" over Severus's subtle attempts at refusing Danny's invitation. Severus had finally relented and she found Danny overjoyed; apparently, Severus wasn't one for parties.

One Side-Along Apparition later, and Hermione found herself reeling on a street in the middle of lush greenery on the eastern side of Oahu.

"Come on, let's walk it off—it was a long way to Apparate," Danny had said brightly as he marched her down the street, though neither he nor Severus looked fazed in the least while her stomach was slowly churning.

And that was how she found herself in the midst of a raucous and lively party.

It seemed that Danny's mother was quite the popular woman, as there were countless people enjoying themselves around the clearing. Tables had been set up underneath a large canopy and almost all of them had a few seated, and there was a long table laden with a multitude of different dishes. Charming little Tiki torches lined the clearing, and flowers glowing from the light of a small candle hovered above the tables. A tan, young man was strolling through the gaggles of people with a worn-out black guitar as he sang along with the girl and boy that were following him, the girl strumming along with a shiny new ukulele. Young children were running around clearing, screaming and shouting as they dueled with their make-believe wands as others zipped around on little toy brooms, and the older kids seemed to be having some sort of tournament involving little dueling monsters that rose up out of cards they placed on the table. Some people around Hermione's age were playing basketball at the far end of the clearing, a pair of hoops and backboards magically suspended in the air.

What really got to Hermione was how they all momentarily stop what they were doing (apart from the basketball players, of course) to gawk at the two newcomers, and it was then that Hermione realized that she and Severus must have looked rather odd walking into a group of tanned Asians and Hawaiians with a few non-Asians interspersed among them. However, Hermione never got the feeling that they were unwelcome, and indeed, found a little Japanese woman striding toward them with surprising vigor.

"Severus, I'm so glad you could come!" she exclaimed. Hermione watched curiously as she walked right up to Severus and seemed to wait for something, then stifled a laugh at the sight of him leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek.

"It's good to see you again, Mrs. Takahashi. Happy birthday," said Severus, smiling warmly though he looked rather ill-at-ease surrounded by so many people. After a moment, as though he was having trouble composing his thoughts, he gestured to Hermione. "This is—this is Hermione Granger."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Takahashi," Hermione said, shaking Mrs. Takahashi's hand and just barely managing to hide her surprise at the woman's iron grip. Though she seemed to be quite a dynamic person—it wasn't difficult to see that Danny had gotten his personality from her—her face was lined from stress and age and her graying hair was streaked generously with white. Hermione had heard the saying that Asians age well, and she was sure that if Mrs. Takahashi hadn't been a werewolf, she would have looked no younger than forty. In any case, she seemed to be in much better health than any werewolves she met in Britain—perhaps things were easier for werewolves in the US, or perhaps, judging by all the people who came to her birthday party, she simply had a larger support group with which to cope.

"Hermione," said Mrs. Takahashi slowly. It was clear that her name wasn't one she encountered often. "It's good to meet you finally. Daisuke told me that you were sick and Severus was taking care of you. Are you okay now?"

"Oh, yes, I'm fine now, thank you."

"That's good. Please, go eat! There's plenty of food. Daisuke, show them the food," she said, shooing Danny away and giving them an expectant look. Hermione nervously thanked her and followed Danny to the long table underneath the canopy. Mrs. Takahashi made her slightly uncomfortable in the same way that Danny seemed to make her uncomfortable; though Mrs. Takahashi was much shorter than her, she had a commanding presence that seemed to fill the vicinity and dwarf Hermione.

A few minutes later, Hermione was sitting at a table, blankly staring at her plate.

Danny had relentlessly insisted that she try each dish, and because she didn't have Severus's incredibly useful Glare of Death (TM), she could not intimidate Danny into backing off like Severus could. So she found herself with every inch of plate covered in food as Severus snickered quietly beside her. Thankfully, Danny sat them all down with friends of his that apparently supplied magical artifacts and potions for his mother's distribution business—and had tried to hand her a bottle of beer that she refused vehemently because she really didn't want to risk doing the hula in front of so many strangers—so there were no awkward silences to speak of as Hermione worked on her pile of food. But before long, they seemed to tire of their conversation and, after they all left to get more beer, returned and began drilling her with questions that she tried her best to answer without getting flustered by all the attention. She was used to the press pestering her, of course, but this felt different somehow.

"So you're from England like Severus?"

"Right. I live in London."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a researcher. I'm studying magical transportation."

"That's neat. My friend kind of does the same thing. She does all sorts of cool things with Floo Powder. What do you do?"

"Right now my research group is studying portkeys, though I've done a bit of study on Floo Powder as well."

"So what are you doing here? Are you on vacation? Were you testing a portkey?"

Hermione hesitated before forcing a smile on her face. "Something like that," she said. She eyed the young man sitting across the table that seemed to be enthralled by her (his mouth was hanging open and he had a rather glazed expression on his face) and laughed nervously. The group was quick on the uptake and immediately the woman sitting next to Danny, his cousin who was nicknamed "Drill" and had curiously piercing eyes that always seemed to be searching for eye contact, nudged him with a mischievous grin on her face.

"Aww, look at Phil," said the girl smugly amid the men's _oooohhhh-_ing and laughing. "Don't pay attention to him, Hermione. He just has a thing for British girls."

"I do_ not_," Phil said crossly, huffing as his face burned red.

"Yeah, _whatever_," said Danny, grinning. "As soon as she said something, you got that stupid look on your face."

"I wonder if he likes Severus too," Drill mused. "Made the same face the first time we met him."

Loud guffaws filled the air as both Severus and Phil seemed to bristle with rage. "Sorry, Phil, looks like Severus is taken," said the man sitting beside Phil, slapping his back gleefully. "Should've asked him out when you had the chance, dude. Hermione's got him now."

"P-pardon?" Hermione sputtered in surprise. "N-no, you misunderstand, Severus and I aren't—"

But her protest quailed and sputtered out at the pointed looks being directed toward her.

"You're so cute," said Drill, grinning. "You might have been—"

Whatever it was Drill thought she might have been was interrupted as an adorable child no older than five tearfully tugged on her shirt, holding up a rather badly scraped elbow. "Mommy, Robbie pushed me off and took the broom," the girl whimpered, sniffling. Drill frowned and immediately got to her feet, taking her daughter's hand. She gave the group an apologetic look as she led her away.

"Come on, let's clean you up and tell your brother to say sorry…" was what Hermione heard as they walked off.

The group around the table seemed to think it was a lovely time for another round of beers and something to munch on, leaving Danny, Severus, and Hermione at the table as they wandered off. "Drill is a Legilimens—or at least, on her way to becoming a licensed one for magical law enforcement," she suddenly heard in her ear, giving a jerk of surprise when she realized it was Severus gently whispering into it.

"Ah, I see," Hermione murmured. Drill's piercing eyes made sense, then—and suddenly, Hermione felt a thought wrench her heart. What was it that Drill might have seen in her to make her think she was "cute"?

Oh, who was she kidding? She knew what it was.

Perhaps it was high time to acknowledge it, whether she liked it or not. She wasn't a teenager anymore, for goodness sake, so she shouldn't be acting like one. But when she remembered it was Severus Snape that was beginning to proliferate in her mind, she couldn't help but hesitate.

People change, sure, but still…this was _Severus Snape_.

"Are you all right? You're holding your breath," came Severus's voice again, but this time away from her ear. She felt a blush creep up her cheeks and hurriedly let the air out of her lungs as he chuckled to himself.

She saw Danny's grin widen out of the corner of her eye but carefully ignored it as she forced herself to finish the rest of the food on her plate. The food was good—incredible, even—but she'd already eaten so much that she was simply eating to keep her gaze away from Severus and Danny. So much for not acting like a kid.

"Hey, Mom."

Hermione looked up and found that Mrs. Takahashi taking a seat beside Danny, a grin on her windswept face. "I didn't know you were such a dancer, Mrs. Takahashi," said Severus, smiling at her. She seemed to wave his compliment away with a hand.

"Oh, you. So did you like the food, Hermione?" she said brightly, brushing her short hair back with her fingers.

"Oh yes, thank you. It was all amazing. I'm quite full," Hermione said cheerily.

"That's good!" Though she seemed quite satisfied with that response, Mrs. Takahashi scrutinized her for a moment. "So how long have you known Severus?" Hermione held back a nervous laugh—she certainly didn't spend any time beating around the bush.

"Oh, we're…old acquaintances." She glanced to Severus for some sort of guidance, and thankfully he straightened up in his seat and took over.

"Indeed. We first met…oh, nearly twenty years ago," he said coolly.

Damn, was that right? Had it really been that long since she first stepped foot in the Potions classroom? Was she really that old now?

Mrs. Takahashi seemed quite impressed at that. "Wow. Twenty years."

Hermione suddenly felt rather discomfited by Mrs. Takahashi's searching gaze—she seemed to be evaluating her, but to what end, Hermione wasn't sure. Thankfully, Severus glanced at his watch and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Takahashi, but we must get going. There is a potion that we need to attend to before it spoils. Happy birthday once again, and thank you for inviting us," said Severus, getting to his feet as Hermione did the same.

"Oh, okay. Thank you for coming," Mrs. Takahashi said. She got up to give Severus a motherly hug and, unexpectedly, did the same to Hermione.

"Happy birthday, Mrs. Takahashi," said Hermione as she returned the admittedly strange hug.

"You be good to Severus, okay?" said Mrs. Takahashi, and Hermione got the distinct feeling that she was being threatened by this woman. Danny hadn't been kidding about how much she liked Severus—it seemed that she thought of him like a son, or at least a very good friend. After bidding Danny goodbye, Severus offered her his arm and, with one last wave to a Mrs. Takahashi who was giving her a rather severe look in spite of the smile on her face, they Apparated back to Severus's beach.

* * *

"In two minutes, we will add the shredded ravengrass. That should be the end of it."

Hermione glanced into the Clearbell Potion's cauldron. The potion, now a deep sapphire blue, was completely still and didn't ripple at all from any movement in the room, as though it had been frozen in place. There was only one ingredient to add now, and that was the shredded ravengrass necessary to dampen and stabilize the effects of the clearbell, which they had allowed to sit untouched for a week. They each held a pinch of ravengrass in their fingers as they waited for the two slow minutes to pass, both tense and both intensely hoping that the potion would not end up a poison. With any luck, the ravengrass would prevent that.

When the allotted two minutes passed, they exchanged glances and wordlessly sprinkled the ravengrass into the potion.

The ravengrass sat on the surface of the potion for a moment, and for a split second, Hermione was terrified that they had made a gross miscalculation—that they let the clearbell sit too long, that they didn't add enough lionfish spines, that everything was all _wrong_. But then, to her relief and evidently to Severus's relief as well if his exhalation was anything to go by, the ravengrass sank into the potion, dissolving in the translucent blue liquid. The potion did nothing for a long moment, and again Hermione's mind was assaulted by the thought that something had gone horribly wrong, but it finally began rippling—in a distressingly violent manner that did nothing to ease her worry—before it suddenly settled down and became motionless once more.

The Clearbell Potion was finished.

They both stared at it in silence for what could have been a few moments or an hour, Hermione couldn't tell. It was finally finished, and if it didn't kill Severus or suddenly explode, he would be cured and he wouldn't be coughing up blood or wheezing like a broken squeaky toy. She desperately hoped that it worked—it would be her gift to him, she thought, a token of her thanks for everything he did during the war and everything he did for her in these past couple months. But if it didn't work…

No. She pushed that thought out of her mind.

It would work. It would work and she would like it, dammit.

Silently, Severus took a glass ladle and scooped a dose of potion into a flask. The potion had an odd, almost syrupy quality and seemed to glisten as he poured it into the flask. He held the flask in his hands and stared down at it, his face unreadable and partially obscured by his hair. No doubt he was thinking about what he was about to drink, perhaps wondering if he would survive it, if it would really work and really rid him of the venom from Lord Voldemort's abhorrent snake. Hermione didn't dare say anything during the silence; it was something he had to come to terms with on his own, something that he had to choose to do, and it didn't feel appropriate for her to try and convince him either way.

"I'm going to drink it now," he finally said, looking up and locking eyes with her. His expression was impassive, but she could see in his eyes the anxiety that his face would not betray, the worry that it might be the last he saw of the world—of her—

And without thinking, she took his free hand and held it tight.

It seemed to reassure him and slowly, he brought the flask to his lips as Hermione held her breath. He hesitated a moment, probably expelling one last misgiving from his mind, before downing the contents of the flask.

He put the bottle down and stared at the wall across the room, his fingers tight around her hand as he waited for the potion to kick in.

And suddenly, he made a horrific retching sound that seemed to come from the very depths of his gut and dropped to his knees, his entire body seizing up as he opened his mouth to vomit. But what spilled out of his mouth was not chunks of Mrs. Takahashi's party food intermingled with stomach acid, but rather a jet black, ink-like liquid that splattered all over the floor and began eating into the floor with a loud _hiss_. Severus let out violent, hacking coughs that seemed to rock his whole body, spraying the floor with more of the black substance. Hermione was terrified that she might have killed him—that the potion really turned out poisonous and was dissolving his organs into this disgusting black liquid—until she realized that with every cough, the dark lines that were decorating his arms and jaw were receding toward the scar on his neck. As Severus coughed and coughed, spitting out more liquid, the lines gradually disappeared into his shirt—and several long minutes later, he was on all fours on the black-splattered floor, beads of cold sweat glistening on his skin as his chest heaved with his breaths.

He breathed heavily.

The rattling wheeze was gone.

Slowly, he got to his feet, his legs and arms trembling, and took a few deep breaths. Still no wheeze. He brought a hand to his chest and felt around, as though expecting to feel something there—or indeed, perhaps something that was _not_ there—before examining his arms. The discolored, dark lines were gone, but scar-like brown lines remained where they used to be, almost like faded henna tattoos. He looked at his arms in disbelief before lifting up his shirt to find that his torso was covered in the same faded lines crisscrossing over his skin. He took a few more deep breaths, as though to make doubly sure that the effect hadn't worn off, before turning to look at Hermione.

"It...it worked. I can feel it."

Relief spread through Hermione and she let out the air she'd been holding in her lungs before giving him a big smile. "I'm…I'm so glad," was all she managed to say. They both stared at each other wearily, Hermione's body feeling like goop and Severus looking ready to collapse at any moment. And it was then that Hermione stepped forward, snaking her arms underneath his to pull him into a tight, inescapable hug. "I'm so glad," she repeated into his shoulder as his body stiffened at her touch. There was a flicker of disappointment in the back of her mind—perhaps she really _did_ overthink things and perhaps he really didn't think of her as anything more than an unlikely friend.

But suddenly his body relaxed and he pressed his cheek to the side of her face, and she felt his hand slip into her hair to hold her head close with his trembling fingers.

"_Hermione,_" he breathed into her ear. His voice sounded pained; for a frightening moment, Hermione thought that perhaps he was really going to die after all—until she realized that what she heard in his voice was not pain, but _longing_—

She turned her head to look at him, brushing her cheek against his, her heart pounding in her chest—and suddenly felt his lips pressed ever so gently to hers, lingering for a heart-stopping moment before pulling away.

Hermione stared at him, wide-eyed in disbelief, and it seemed he was just as surprised. Their faces were close, his dark eyes seeming to search her very soul—

And suddenly, a pained look overcame him and he let go of her, taking a step back. "H-Hermione, I—forgive me, I shouldn't have—please excuse me, Miss Granger," he said, turning and hurrying out the door before Hermione could even open her mouth to protest.

She felt as though she'd just been slapped in the face. So she was suddenly "Miss Granger" again?

It took her another moment to realize that she was just standing there, gaping at the open door, before she dashed out and into the living room of the house. It was empty, but the front door was hanging open—Hermione ran onto the porch and looked about in the nighttime darkness, frowning when she found nothing but the empty beach. She stumbled onto the sand and peered about, as though her view from there would have been any better than from the porch, and sank down despondently when she realized that Severus was nowhere in the vicinity, curling into a ball and staring out at the crescent moon hanging over the ocean.

Why had he run like that—distancing himself with both physically and familiarly by referring to her so formally? She had simply been shocked by the kiss…Perhaps he had misinterpreted it as disgust or horror? But it was neither; it had felt unlike any other kiss she shared with any other man, and her face and lips still tingled where he had touched her. And if he would _just_ come back from wherever it was he had hidden himself, she would tell him so. She could only repress the thoughts in her mind for so long, and she was well past the breaking point.

A single tear rolled down her cheek as sleep overcame her.

* * *

The smell of something burning pulled Hermione out of her uneasy sleep. She opened her eyes groggily and found that it was still dark on the beach, but realized that there was a small fire blazing in the sand near her. Her neck and shoulders ached from the way she'd fallen asleep, and she couldn't help but let out a groan as she sat up. Her heart nearly skipped a beat when she realized that Severus was crouched by the fire, presently holding a long stick into the flames and burning a marshmallow into a blackened crisp. She peered around and found that marshmallows were scattered in the sand all around them, some white but others burned to a crisp and filling the air with a sickly sweet smell. What on Earth had possessed him to burn half a bag of marshmallows to cope with his emotional issues?

He turned to look at her at the sound of her awakening, and she was struck by how weary and faraway his eyes looked in the flickering light of the fire, just like the night she sat with him on the beach after he conjured his phoenix Patronus.

"I want to apologize, Miss Granger," he said before she could say a word. "That was out of line…I shouldn't have taken advantage of you like that—"

"Oh, shut it," said Hermione huffily, scooting herself over to sit next to him and pressing herself against his arm. Once she was settled, she allowed her expression to soften. "You didn't take advantage of me. And since when did you start calling me 'Miss Granger' again? I thought we had an agreement."

He was silent for a moment, before he looked to her with a frown. "What are you—what are you trying to say?"

"I…I rather liked it, in fact…is what I'm trying to say," Hermione said, her face burning with embarrassment despite of her firm words.

"But you—but _I'm_—I—" he sputtered, and Hermione grimaced. She'd never heard him stumble over his words like that, and it was rather disconcerting.

"You're normally a very eloquent man, Severus."

Without looking at him and feeling rather self-conscious, she wrapped her arm around his own and rested her head against his shoulder. It felt right, the way her body seemed to fit against his. And ever so hesitantly, as though he was afraid that she might pull away, Severus's hand found hers and they laced their fingers together. She could tell that this was something alien to him, that he wasn't quite so sure how to deal with it. Severus Snape had the air of a man who had great knowledge and often had said knowledge, so it was easy to think that he would be well-versed in matters such as these and it was somewhat surprising that he didn't. But it was endearing, she supposed, the way he was seemed so uncertain of himself.

They sat beside the fire in silence. Severus's body had finally relaxed in acceptance and Hermione found that she could as well, aided by the sound of his steady breathing and the sounds of the ocean lapping on the shore.

"I'll—I'll have to go home eventually," she whispered as she felt her eyelids beginning to droop.

"I know. But this—this right now is good."

And she couldn't help but agree.

* * *

Hermione awoke on the beach slowly—she was loath to open her eyes when she felt so comfortable, but when she finally did, she realized that she was lying in the sand, Severus pressed against her side and his arm draped loosely over her waist. She shut her eyes again, enjoying the feeling of his breath against her shoulder as he slept, made all the better by the way his lungs weren't giving off any sort of deathly wheezing. She tried not to think about how she'd have to leave him now that they'd accomplished their mission of curing him, and instead thought about what sorts of amusing reactions her friends back home would have should they see her like this, held in the dreaded Professor Snape's arms on the beach.

"Hey, I think she's waking up…"

"Shhh, don't wake them..."

She wrenched her eyes open and immediately bolted upright, snatching her wand up and looking around for the source of the voices, ready to fire off curses at any would-be attackers. Her eyes found said sources—and when she realized that they weren't going to attack her as she initially expected, she felt her face burning up once more.

Speak of the devil.

Harry and Ron were sitting on the beach a little ways from her, their faces a mixture of shock and amusement.

"Wh-wh-what are you doing here?" Hermione sputtered as Severus grunted and slowly woke.

"I have to say, Hermione, you two look adorable," said Harry, grinning at her. She noticed him surreptitiously—or so he thought—slip Ron a small handful of Galleons and frowned. Had they _expected_ this development to occur and bet on it?

"I'm not adorable, Potter," said Severus irately as he pulled himself upright and brushed sand off his shirt.

"I reckon Hermione's adorable enough for the both of you, Professor," Ron said brightly, his grin as wide as Harry's. This certainly wasn't how Hermione expected them to react; granted, they were infinitely more mature now than they were in their school days, but she had expected some level of shock or horror that the _greasy git_ had been sleeping beside her.

"How are you feeling, Professor? The black lines are gone," said Harry, scooting himself a little closer. Severus took a few deep breaths to make sure his lungs weren't dissolving back into a bloody mess and gave Harry a satisfied nod.

"Cured. The potion worked."

"Congratulations! That's brilliant," Harry exclaimed enthusiastically. "Well done, Hermione, Professor!" He reached over to shake Severus's hand, who hesitantly did so, his expression bland but his eyes betraying his surprise.

"I knew you'd be able to do it," said Ron, scooting himself next to Harry.

"Well…you know," Hermione said, feeling slightly bashful at their praise. "So why are you two here? Surely you're not here just to watch us sleep."

"You remember how the War Memorial was supposed to open a few weeks ago?" asked Ron, and Hermione nodded. "The contractors that were handling the marble got delayed because their shipment turned up damaged by some illegal Persian fire salamanders that got loose. Apparently they like to burrow into it."

"So the Memorial will be opening tomorrow now that it's finally finished, and they'd really like it if you were there for the opening ceremony," Harry continued. "_We_ would really like if you were there, Hermione. It wouldn't be the same without you."

Hermione felt a chill go through her body. There was nothing really that she had to do here in Hawaii anymore, but it would mean leaving Severus much sooner than she expected. Not that she could have stayed cloistered away at his beach forever, but she didn't think she'd be forced to choose so soon after successfully completing the potion. However, it seemed that Harry sensed her ambivalence, because he quickly put up his hands as though he'd offended her somehow.

"It would only be for a day—just the ceremony and maybe dinner with the Weasleys—and afterwards you can do whatever you like," he said hastily, his eyes quickly darting from her to Severus and back.

"The Department would jump on me as soon as they saw me there," Hermione mused, frowning and folding her arms over her chest. "Now that I'm better, I'll have to sort out the mess that Sinclair made there…"

Harry got to his feet and was followed by Ron. "Well, why don't you think about it? We'll leave an old boot back in the forest clearing, and if you want to come, it'll take you to the portkey terminal near your flat. If you're coming, you'll want to be on the Hogwarts grounds by eight AM tomorrow our time," said Harry, smiling kindly at her. "Listen, I've got to go. Al's sick and I promised Ginny I wouldn't be long. Congratulations again, Professor. Glad to see that you're well now."

"Hope to see you there, Hermione. Congrats as well, Professor," Ron said, turning to follow Harry from the beach. He paused and looked at Severus over his shoulder. "You know, you're welcome to come as well. Sure, you're supposed to be dead, but I could nick some Polyjuice Potion for you if you like. You can go disguised as someone else."

"I'll think about it, Weasley. Thank you," Severus said, a hint of distaste in his voice—he didn't sound all too eager at the prospect of being on the Hogwarts grounds again. Hermione waved at them as they headed for the forest, turning to Severus only after they disappeared into it.

"I—" she started, but she wasn't able to complete her sentence. She had obligations back in London—she couldn't stay here forever. And once she got there, she'd never be able to get away until she sorted out the problems at the Department of Mysteries. Sure, Hawaii was only a portkey hop away, but still…

"You should go to the ceremony," he said quietly, giving her a thin smile. "It wouldn't be right if the Trio was missing a member."

Hermione felt her heart fall ever so slightly at his words. But she quickly caught herself—what would she have him do, beg her to stay? That would be childish, and they were both well past that stage of their lives. And it was true that those attending the ceremony would likely be disappointed that the famed trio was missing the woman who was often named "the cleverest witch of her age."

"You're right…you're right," Hermione replied in defeat, nodding and averting her gaze from him. "What time is it?"

Severus peered at his watch. "Half past nine."

"I—I should probably pack up my things and leave as soon as I can so I'm not in a hurry back in London…"

"Indeed."

Not a word was said between them as they went back to the house and into the bedroom, not even as her last article of clothing flew into the enchanted courier bag Ron had left after their first visit. He simply stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame and deep in thought if the furrow in his brow was anything to go by, before he turned to leave when she indicated that she needed to change clothes by gesturing at the pair of jeans and the light jacket she left on her bed. As she unknotted her blue sarong and pulled her jeans on, she frowned at how foreign and unnatural they felt—and the jacket felt equally as strange. She hadn't had to wear long clothing in so long that it was as though her skin had forgotten the feeling of them.

When she was finished, she shouldered the courier bag and stood in the doorway, looking back at the bedroom. She sighed and turned to leave, wondering if she'd ever return to see it again. As she slowly made her way through the hallway, she paused to briefly glance into the potion room, her eyes lingering on the black splatter that had stained the floor, before turning away and heading for the living room.

It seemed that Danny was on the porch with Severus, and looked a little less cheery than normal. "Hey, Hermione," he said, giving her a subdued smile that seemed to cast a raincloud over the otherwise bright day. "So you're leaving, huh?"

"I—I have to. There are…things I need to take care of in London," she said, giving him an apologetic smile. He laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah? Good thing Severus here called me over. You were going to leave without letting me say bye!" he said, and he somehow was able to force a grin on his face. "You coming back?"

"I don't know…I'll have a lot of things to sort out, what with Sinclair and all."

"Yeah, well, you better visit once in a while, all right?" said Danny, giving her such a severe look that she couldn't help but laugh at. "Atta girl. Come on, I'll walk you guys to the portkey site."

She was grateful that Danny was there to relieve the tension between her and Severus: he chattered away animatedly with filler like bits about Muggle sports and the ludicrous prices of toad oil these days. Hermione was sure that the walk to the clearing would have seemed like eternity if she had Severus had spent it in silence, so she was glad when the clearing seemed to approach them in almost no time at all. The old boot that Harry promised was sitting in the middle of it, and she slowly walked over and stood next to it.

"Hey, it was great meeting you, Hermione," said Danny as she turned around to face them, his bright smile in stark contrast with Severus's impassive face and his clenched jaw. Danny pulled her into a brief hug before letting her go. "Make sure you visit, all right?"

"All right, all right," said Hermione, laughing. "Thank you for everything, Danny. Truly, thank you."

"Don't mention it. It was worth it all to see this stick in the mud do the hula and finally go to one of our parties." He grinned at Severus, who replied by shooting him an irritated glare.

"Well, bye then…" said Hermione hesitantly. She glanced to Severus, searching his eyes. "Severus, do you think…you and I…?"

He was silent a moment and she could see his jaw muscle clenching and unclenching quickly, as though reflecting the racing thoughts that must have been going through his mind, before he finally spoke. "I…You would do well to—to find someone more suited for you, Hermione. You—you can do so much better than me…" he said slowly, as though it was killing him to say it—and it felt like icy claws had gripped her heart when she heard his words.

It was all she could do to keep the thin smile on her face from collapsing. So was this what he was thinking so hard about while she was packing up her things? He thought that he wasn't _good enough_ for her?

But she forced herself to keep a smile on her face—if he didn't want her, then she supposed she could at least leave him with a smile…as a sort of parting gift.

"I—I see. Is it all right if I write you…?"

"That is…acceptable."

A ripple of relief spread through Hermione. At least he didn't mind letters.

"Then…I'll be off. Thank you for everything, Severus," said Hermione, struggling to keep the quaver out of her voice and the tears from welling up in her eyes. "I don't know how I could ever repay you."

Severus brought his hand to the scar on his neck and gave her a small smile. "You already have, Hermione."

She knelt down to pick up the boot, hoping that the trembling of her fingers wasn't quite so obvious to them as it was to her.

"Goodbye, then, Severus."

"Farewell, Hermione."

_Farewell…it all sounds so final._

The all-too-familiar hooking feeling pulled at her from behind her navel and she watched miserably as she was enveloped by swirling, flashing lights as she was pulled far, far away from Hawaii—from Severus Snape's charming little island—

And suddenly she spun into existence in a London portkey terminal, just barely managing to keep on her feet as they touched the floor. She cast her eyes around at her surroundings, letting out a sigh when she found the bright sun and ocean breeze replaced by gloomy indoor lighting and air that smelled damp and polluted by the exhaust of the Muggle automobiles in the city.

So this was home, was it?

It didn't feel like it.

Hermione stoically began the walk toward her flat, her jaw clenched and her eyes staring firmly ahead of her and away from any passersby trying to catch the eye of the famed Hermione Granger. She barely even greeted the landlady lounging outside her complex smoking a cigarette, merely giving her a small nod as she strode quickly past the front doors and into a waiting elevator. A feeling of restlessness filled her as she stood in the small elevator, and she felt like her skin was crawling from being trapped in surroundings it did not want to be in. Once she was at her floor and in front of her flat, it took her a moment to get her front door unlocked; even her own front door seemed foreign and unfamiliar to her.

And as soon as she stepped in and shut the door behind her, she sank to her knees and let out a sob.

* * *

_A/N: So I'm back from Hawaii. It was fun. XD Had some shaved ice, lots of food, went surfing...Didn't wanna leave. Ahaha._

_This chapter was effing hard to write. Please understand that romance and sappy things are absolutely not my forte, but I figured I could use the challenge. Anywho, there's one chapter left in Flotsam, but I'll continue it in another fic that'll wrap up the loose bits from this and continue the whole Ministry thing. I should have the last chapter finished before I run off to New York for a week. I was supposed to go to Japan, but with the tsunami and the nuclear plant issues, I cancelled my ticket. I feel bad for them there though...If you can, donate some money to the Red Cross for relief.  
_

_As always, let me know if there are any weirdo typos. Sometimes I accidentally a lot of words. Hahaha._

_Thanks again for sticking around so long, guys. I appreciate it. : )_

_**Ninja edit**: Thank you, Very Small Prophet, you're absolutely right. I had a brain fart last night, which is embarrassing because I remember doing a Google search to verify the 11-hour time difference. I think I need more sleep...Anywho, I've edited the relevant bits to get rid of the daytime vibe in London.  
_


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Flotsam**

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

Smile.

"_Why hello."_

"_Yes, I'm well now."_

"_No, _Witch Weekly_'s article was absurd. A foreign spy? Please."_

"_Oh, thank you. I suppose I've tanned a bit, haven't I?"_

Rinse. Repeat.

Hermione found herself lingering with Luna Lovegood near the outer edges of the crowd on the Hogwarts grounds, weary from telling people that yes, her health was better, that no, _Witch Weekly_ was just writing nonsense, and _yes, I am rather tanned now, aren't I_? Luna, ever the perceptive one, had picked up on her unease and was keeping her company while they waited to start the ceremony commemorating the War Memorial. It wasn't anything extravagant; in fact, it was all the more powerful for its simplicity—a white marble obelisk stood about fifteen feet tall in the center of a graceful semicircular wall of magically-reinforced obsidian that was partially sunk into the ground. The obsidian wall had a deep green, almost black sheen with a mirror-like reflective surface, and the wall tapered off so the endpoints were at half height at either end, giving it a lovely crescent-moon feel. Carved into the surface of the obsidian were the names of those who fought or were lost in the Second Wizarding War—which included wizards, Muggles, and non-humans alike at Harry's insistence—which put into stark clarity just how many had been lost in Lord Voldemort's quest for power.

"Something seems to be bothering you," said Luna without looking to her. "You can tell me what it is if you like."

"It's nothing," Hermione said.

Which was a lie, of course, but Luna would know that and would know not to press the issue.

Truth be told, she was angry with herself for letting Severus have his way like that. She should have insisted that he was spouting nonsense—that he should have known better than to think of himself in that way—but it would have to wait until after today. After the ceremony and dinner at the Burrow, Hermione had every intention of immediately taking a portkey back to Hawaii to knock some sense into that man. Or kiss him senseless. Perhaps both, and not necessarily in that order.

The thought of returning to finish what he had started ignited a small flame in Hermione, and because of it, she found herself growing more and more able to bear the relentless remarks about her health and her tan. She hadn't looked all that tan back in Hawaii, but she supposed that she did look rather darker when compared to some of the pasty-white people attending the ceremony. Luckily for her, the temperature outside warranted warm clothing—otherwise she would have had to endure people taking notice of the tan lines from her tank tops.

"Did you get a good look at the wall yet?" came Luna's rather dreamy voice as she turned to peer at Hermione.

"No, I haven't."

"I'm going to look for gillywracks by the wall—they like dark surfaces. Would you like to come?" she asked. Hermione stifled a smile—she was the same old Luna, still looking for creatures of questionable existence—but nodded and followed her around the crowd and to the end of the wall closest to them.

The wall was breathtaking up close: it stood about seven feet high at its tallest point and was covered in thousands of names engraved into the glossy surface—a small, elegant symbol beside the name indicated whether the individual was a magical human, a Muggle, or a non-human. The wall was enchanted to repel fingerprints, remaining pristine even after the innumerable gentle touches that the visitors were reverently placing upon it. Hermione could see herself reflected in the obsidian as she slowly walked the length of the wall reading the names carved into it. If the wall was straightened out, it would have been over a hundred feet long. She felt her throat briefly seize up when she found Albus Dumbledore's name, and again when she encountered Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. James and Lily Potter. All those innocent Muggles murdered.

_Severus Snape._

A quiet laugh escaped her lips. What would the world think of him now, lounging around on the other side of the world in penguin shirts and board shorts?

"Good morning, Hermione."

Hermione turned to find Professor McGonagall standing behind her and smiled. "Hello, Professor! How are you?" she asked cheerily.

"I'm well, thank you. It's a pleasure to see that you're fully recovered," said McGonagall. She began walking off toward the outer fringe of the crowd of people, looking at Hermione over her glasses expectantly. Hermione followed immediately.

When they were sufficiently far from the thickest groups of people, McGonagall turned her head slightly toward her. "I heard from Potter that you've managed to cure Mr. Prince," she said lightly, as though they were simply discussing some academic journal while strolling through the grounds.

"I have. I believe he will be fine now," said Hermione, smiling but directing her gaze at the ground.

"My dear, you really are something," McGonagall said, flashing Hermione a smile. She paused briefly, looking out at the trees of the forest in the distance before giving Hermione a sidelong glance. "Potter did mention something else that intrigued me. He spoke of seeing you on the beach with him the other day."

Hermione stiffened a little and hesitated before simply answering, "Ah, that."

"Oh, don't misunderstand, it's not that I disapprove," said McGonagall, and Hermione could've sworn that McGonagall gave another thin smile. "It's good for him. For the both of you, I think."

"I—I see. Thank you," Hermione said uncomfortably. Really, was no one going to be surprised? She was the one involved with the man, and yet she had been the most surprised out of everyone.

"It seems that the ceremony will be starting. We'd better join them on the stage," McGonagall said when they saw Kingsley Shacklebolt, Harry, and others beginning to gather on the low stage set up in front of the marble obelisk.

She and McGonagall joined the small assortment of people on the stage, Hermione immediately straightening her posture and switching to Hermione Granger, Celebrated War Heroine. It wouldn't do to look droopy and depressed on stage, not when the wolves that were the media would pick up on every little thing that occurred within public view. Her smile façade was up in full force—a defense she developed against the photographers and journalists that took note when public figures were troubled—while Kingsley, as the Minister of Magic, and Professor McGonagall, as Hogwarts Headmistress, each shared a small speech with the audience about the purpose and significance of the War Memorial.

Once McGonagall finished, Hermione stepped forward to share a few impromptu words with the crowd staring up at her—a speech was implicitly expected of her as she was _the_ brilliant Hermione Granger, after all. Though she was delighted that the Memorial was complete and deeply believed in what it stood for, her words were not extraordinary in any way and was nothing the people watching her in rapt attention would not have heard in the ten years leading up to the Memorial's construction. But still they applauded as though she had said something revolutionary, which was fine with her. In any case, she expected that Harry would be able to rouse them more than her perfunctory words. He was good at stirring up spirits and would close the ceremony on a good, resounding note.

And Harry delivered. By the time he finished his speech, speaking of the dangers of the pureblood superiority complex and (Hermione felt that he was channeling his inner Dumbledore at this point) the unifying power of love and the crucial role that _choice_ played throughout the war, Hermione could see several faces in tears among the sea of people before the stage. Her smile widened in amusement as she blinked her own tears away; it was almost shocking how good Harry had become at this sort of thing in the ten years since the war.

"That was brilliant, mate. Work on it long?" Ron murmured as they all left the stage and headed toward the group of photographers waiting for them by the end of the obsidian wall.

"All week," Harry replied quietly, visibly stifling a grin. "Made Ginny cry when I practiced it with her."

"You're becoming quite the public speaker," Hermione said as an industrious photographer quickly arranged them—the Trio, Minister, Headmistress, and a few other people instrumental in the construction of the Memorial—for the benefit of the other photographers waiting anxiously to take their pictures.

"You weren't too bad yourself for having only a few hours' notice," said Harry after the bright flashes of the cameras died down. Another photographer pulled the three of them away from the Minister and Headmistress and was immediately joined by a few other photographers. Once they were satisfied, he gave her a sidelong glance, "I take it the professor wasn't all that eager to come. He's not here, is he?"

"No, he stayed home." Hermione found that it didn't bother her as much as it did earlier in the morning; she was going to go back and berate him about it, after all. Ron gave a laugh.

"I really thought he'd show up," he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his robes. "How great would it have been if he showed up in that pink shirt?"

Hermione snorted in amusement and the image of Severus showing up in shorts and a pink shirt to the Memorial commemoration. Surely, everyone would think that Armageddon was upon them.

"Hey, Hermione, Professor McGonagall gave us permission to visit Dumbledore's portrait—Ginny, Ron, and I," Harry said once all the photographers had their fill of picture-taking. "Do you want to come?"

Of course she wanted to. So as the castle house-elves were preparing the light refreshments outside near the Memorial, they made their way to the castle. She and Ginny—who had left her children in the care of her parents for the time being—used the time to catch up on all the things she had missed during her jaunt in Hawaii, and in turn, Hermione told her of all the things she did during her little holiday on the island. Well, most of the things, anyway; it seemed that Harry hadn't revealed to her that the gentleman who had nursed her back to health was none other than Severus Snape, and she just barely managed to stop herself from mentioning him and instead detailed her stories using Danny's name in lieu of his.

Hermione felt a wave of nostalgia overcome her when they finally reached the Headmistress's office—she used to visit often and have tea when Professor McGonagall had free time, but as the both of them grew busier over the years, their visits dwindled in number. The office was a much less mysterious place now that Professor McGonagall had taken over: it was a practical room obviously meant for business, but there were a few personal effects like a small tartan tablecloth on one of the spindly tables that used to host Dumbledore's curious instruments, and a tartan tin of biscuits sat where Dumbledore's bowl of sweets_ du jour_ used to sit. Hermione peered over by McGonagall's large desk and found that several of the headmaster portraits were fast asleep, but Dumbledore's was wide awake and his eyes were twinkling away at them.

Severus's portrait was conspicuously empty.

"What a pleasure to see all of you again," said Dumbledore, beaming. "How did the ceremony go?"

"Harry had them crying after two minutes," Ron laughed, grinning.

"It really was quite a moving speech, though. I wish you could have heard it, Professor Dumbledore," Hermione added as Ginny gave Ron an irritated, sisterly shove.

"Really, guys, it wasn't_ that_ good," Harry said bashfully, laughing and stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Dumbledore gave a jovial laugh that reminded Hermione of the Dumbledore during her school days. "Perhaps Minerva will have a transcript for me later, then," he said, and as Harry laughed again, Hermione suddenly found Dumbledore's attention turned to her. "I heard from Minerva about your condition, Miss Granger. Is it safe to assume that you are fully recovered?"

"Yes, I am. I'm perfectly fine now," she said brightly.

"She also cured the professor."

Dumbledore looked from Harry to Hermione in delight. "Is that so? That is great news indeed. You never cease to amaze, my dear," he said, his smile dazzling. Ginny turned to give Hermione a perplexed look.

"Professor?"

"It's—a long story. I'll tell you later," Hermione said, and though Ginny gave her and Harry rather doubtful glares, she didn't protest. Hermione glanced at Severus's empty portrait frame, then back to Dumbledore. "Where is Professor Snape's portrait?"

"Well, it was the most curious thing," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, though the look on his face suggested that he knew more than he let on. "Something was troubling him last night, and he stormed out of the frame when I asked about it."

"I've heard he was sulking in the third floor corridor," Phineas Nigellus interjected. "Won't speak to anyone."

Even through the portrait canvas, Dumbledore's eyes seemed to see right through her, as though to say, "_Do you know anything about this?_" This news seemed to surprise the others in the room, and soon Hermione found everyone staring at her curiously.

"Is that right?" she said, doing her best to feign nonchalance at both the news of Portrait Severus's temper and Dumbledore's piercing eyes. Portrait magic was something Hermione wasn't too well-read in, but if she recalled correctly, portraits of people still living were linked to their originals. So if Portrait Severus was upset, then surely that meant the actual Severus was as well—and the idea only strengthened her desire to return to Hawaii the next day.

"Well, you'd better get back to the Memorial. No doubt they'll be looking for you," Dumbledore said brightly, as though the matter was suddenly resolved.

"I suppose. It was nice seeing you again, Professor," Harry said, a slight frown on his face.

"What professor were they talking about, Hermione?" Ginny asked after they bid goodbye to the portraits in the office and made their way out of the castle.

Hermione wanted to tell Ginny, she really did, but she felt it would probably be best to ask Severus's permission first before revealing him to anybody. "An institute professor in America," Hermione lied, giving Harry and Ron quick looks and hoping they would give her some support. "He was sick and thought nobody could cure him."

"Yeah, we met him when we went to visit," said Ron casually. "You should've seen him, Ginny. Kept coughing up blood everywhere. I thought he was a goner."

Ginny was convinced—or seemed to be, anyway. "Poor bloke," she said. "That's great that you helped him out."

They all parted once they reached the Memorial area again, with Harry and Ginny leaving to relieve Molly and Arthur Weasley of their children and Ron going off to find Lavender Brown. Hermione felt rather alone right then, even though she was surrounded by people, so she had half a mind to look for Luna and join her in searching for whatever creature it was she had been looking for earlier. Gillbacks, was it? But Luna was nowhere in sight, and she didn't really care to talk to anybody that _was_ in sight; they were all rather older Ministry employees that were busy talking to others.

However, she did catch a glimpse of Marcus Matthews in the crowd and quickly turned to make for the refreshment tables. Matthews was the man high up in the Department of Mysteries that had apparently ordered Richard to interrogate and investigate her back in Hawaii, and she was not in the mood to deal with him or anybody else at the Department quite yet. She picked up a small plate from the end of the table and absently stared at the food spread out before her. She settled on taking a small bunch of grapes and a cute snack-sized éclair and wandered around the fringe of the significantly thinned crowd. A few people stopped to greet her and chat a bit—she ran into Arthur Weasley and had a short discussion with him about the internet ("I just registered for an electric mail address!"), then encountered Neville and talked for a bit about how he was handling being a Hogwarts professor ("It's hard to not want to smack some students in the face…").

"Hermione," she heard a voice say when Neville took his leave, and then felt a soft tap on her shoulder.

Danny Takahashi was standing behind her, a surprisingly somber expression on his face.

"Danny! What are you doing here?" Hermione said in alarm. What might have happened to prompt him to go all the way to Hogwarts just to talk to her?

"Can we talk?" he asked, looking around furtively as he adjusted his deep green scarf.

"S-sure."

They walked off a little ways toward the forest, stopping just before the tree line, Danny carefully making sure that his back was to the rest of the crowd. "What are you doing here, Danny?" Hermione asked. "Did something happen?"

"N-no, everything is fine back home. I just…had to come," he said, a pained expression on his face. Hermione frowned in confusion at his words—not because of the actual words, but rather because of his immaculate English accent. She distinctly remembered Danny being absolutely terrible at imitating any sort of British accent, and yet here he was sounding like a native.

She narrowed her eyes and tensed her muscles, readying herself to whip out her wand.

"You're…not Danny."

"No. No, I'm not Danny," he said quietly.

His voice was so subdued that whoever this man was couldn't mean her any harm, and so Hermione turned her gaze upon his eyes, searching their depths to see just who was hidden beneath the mask—

And took a step back in realization.

"_Severus?_"

He swallowed and nodded.

"But…Ron never mentioned that he gave you any Polyjuice!" Hermione sputtered, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. It was a wonder that she hadn't yet collapsed onto the ground.

"He didn't—there was no time. I had a little bit at home. Just enough for an hour," he said. Severus's accent heard in Danny's voice—coupled with the fact that he had dared to show up in Europe and on _Hogwarts grounds_ no less—was throwing Hermione for a loop, pulling at the threads of her mind until it threatened to unravel.

"Just one hour?" she asked in alarm, her mind reeling. One hour worth of Polyjuice couldn't have much more than the dregs at the bottom of the bottle. "How long have you been here?"

Danny-Severus glanced at his pocket watch. "Forty-five minutes."

"_What? _But why—"

"I couldn't find you after you finished taking photos," he said quickly. "Hagrid had disappeared as well, so I thought you and your friends might have gone to visit his home. Clearly I was wrong."

"We were visiting Dumbledore's portrait. _But Severus—!"_ Hermione watched in horror as Danny-Severus's hair began growing longer, his brown eyes turning to a dark black, his nose elongating...

…Until Severus Snape finally stood before her on the Hogwarts grounds.

"_Merlin_, Severus, what happened to your face?" Hermione gasped. There was a purplish blotch underneath his left eye that exacerbated the startlingly dark lines underneath his eyes. She'd not been gone a twenty-four hours and he already looked like he hadn't slept in days—it wasn't difficult to see why his portrait had been so upset, if his bedraggled face was anything to go by.

"About a minute after you left, Danny called me an asshole and, I quote, 'a fucking retard,'" said Snape, the ghost of a smirk briefly appearing on his weary features as Hermione put a hand to her mouth in shock. "I tried to ignore him, so he punched me in the face."

"But that was hours ago…What are you doing at the ceremony?"

"I thought I would get over it—I thought it wouldn't be any different than getting over _her_…"

Suddenly, he reached down to take her hand, clutching it tightly in his. "But I realized that it is not. Not this time." His fingers were quivering slightly.

Hermione could barely speak. Her throat seized up and her heart was ready to punch a hole through her ribcage.

"You could have come tomorrow—or later today," she said hoarsely, looking nervously at the crowd milling about obliviously behind him. Severus held her hand tighter.

"I had to come now. While I—while I still have the nerve." His words seemed to resonate in Hermione's heart, and though she understood perfectly, she had one more question to ask.

"Why would you come _here?_ What if someone sees you?" Hermione asked quietly, her voice hardly more than a whisper. "I couldn't live with myself if they found you because of me…"

Severus shook his head and stepped forward so that they were close enough for him to hold her knuckles to his forehead. "No. I've realized that you_, _Hermione…_you_ are worth it," he whispered, slowly taking her hand from his forehead and gently kissing the back of her hand. The feel of his lips on her skin…A tingle rippled through her body, and she couldn't help but make a tiny gasp of surprise. He smiled. "The rest of the world can go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned."

"Severus…"

"So if you will give this old man a chance…" He was speaking into her knuckles now. "…we can try to make _this_—you and I—work."

_If she'd give him a chance?_ Was he honestly asking her this? Was this even a question?

Hermione answered by taking his bruised face in her hands and pressing a kiss onto his lips. His mouth spread into a smile underneath hers, and when they finally pulled apart, he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as though he would never hold her again.

"You are the best bit of flotsam that I ever found on the beach," he murmured into her ear. Somehow, she knew that if she looked at his face now, she'd find that oh-so-familiar smirk on it.

She laughed into his shoulder, blissfully ignoring the flashing of cameras in the corner of her eye.

"Is that so?"

"Indeed."

* * *

_A/N: Weeeell, that's the end. XD; Sorry, no epilogue for this particular fic since the story I'm going to write comes directly after this one. Again, it'll explain Sinclair's motivation and stuff, and it'll get the whole gang involved. : D_

_I'm not sure how I feel about this ending. I've never been one for writing romance scenes, so none of this feels right. I feel like it needs some blood and guts and love confessions on the precipice of death and all that jazz. But, I figured that since I always do that kind of thing, it'd be a good challenge to not kill off one or both of the lovers. Ahaha._

_I assumed that the headmasters' portraits can leave their frames and wander the rest of the castle. I tried to find evidence of them not doing that, but I couldn't find anything and I can't get to all my HP books to check the actual text. Correct me if I'm wrong, plox.  
_

_Thanks for sticking around to the end, everybody! I've never had a story with so many reviews before, so it was all really encouraging. I hope you guys stick around for the next story too._


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